Page 135 of When the Stars Rise

I stare at her for a moment. Without her sunglasses, I can see the purple shadows under her eyes like she hasn’t been sleeping well. The closer I look the more I can see how wrecked she is. Beautiful, yes. Always. But her face looks ravaged, and her eyes are so bleak it hurts to look into them.

Did I do this to her?

All I want to do is wrap her up in my arms, hold on tight and never let go. But I can’t do that because once again we’re in this weird place and now she’s telling me that her favorite meal is not even her favorite?

My hand goes to my heart, and I rub my chest, always trying to ease the ache but like always, failing miserably.

“What are you talking about? Your mom always made this meal for you because it was your favorite. You said you loved it.”

“I did. When I was about nine or ten. But by the time I was a teenager I’d gotten sick of it.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal that she’s altering years of memories on a whim, and I don’t know why it upsets me so much, but it does.

“It wasn’t my favorite anymore, but I didn’t have the heart to tell my mom,” Hayley says. “The same with those cheese strings she used to always pack in my lunch. And remember when I was into those plushies? My parents bought me just about every single one and kept buying them even after I outgrew them. One time I packed them all in a box and hid it in my closet but ended up putting them back on my shelves because I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings.”

I have no idea where any of this is coming from, but I have a bad feeling I won’t like where it’s headed. “So what are you saying? You’ve outgrown everything you used to love?”

Everything, including me?

Her big hazels lock onto mine. “I’m saying that as I grew up, I changed. And I used to feel so guilty about that. Like I wasn’t allowed to change and evolve because my parents wanted me to be their little girl forever. And all my life, I’ve had such a hard time with change. I didn’t want to disappoint the people in my life, so I’ve been hanging on to who I was and tried so hard to keep as much of my life the same as it always was.”

I shake my head, disputing that. “That’s not true. Your life is nothing like it was.” I sweep my hand through the air, gesturing to the expansive kitchen in a multi-million-dollar house in fucking Malibu.

“I know. But I’ve spent most of my life feeling guilty for so many things and I spent so many years being scared of losing the people I love. I was so scared of losing you that I kept pushing you away.”

I shrug like it’s no big deal that she eviscerated my heart. “I get it. I know why you did it. I lied to you. And I kept doing the things that scared you even after you asked me not to. But I’m not going to do any of that anymore. I’m done with all of that.” I hadn’t planned on saying that but after the words are out, they sound right.

It’s what I need to do because living without Hayley is unthinkable. It’s killing me not to be able to touch her and hold her and just be with her.

Hayley shakes her head a little. “You shouldn’t have to give something up just to be with me.”

“Yeah, well, I want to.” She doesn’t look convinced, so I open my mouth to drive my point home, but she speaks before I get the chance.

“Let’s go outside. It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

I don’t think this is about the climate in her house. There’s something more going on here.

I tug at the collar of my T-shirt and follow her through the glass doors to the limestone terrace past the pool to an outdoor seating area behind a wall of green foliage.

I climb the stone steps and take in the view of the jagged cliffs. The Pacific Ocean sparkling under a California sun. A small private beach below us. Hayley has the world at her feet and all I want to do is be the man she deserves but I don’t fucking know how to do that anymore.

She’s staring into the distance, but I don’t think she’s enjoying the scenery. I study her profile, the sweep of her sooty lashes and the constellation of freckles on her cheekbone. The lush lips I’ve kissed hundreds of times. Probably thousands. And I’ve never felt so lost or alone in all my life as I do right now.

I miss you. I miss us.

Feeling the heat of my gaze, her head turns, and her eyes meet mine as we turn to face each other.

“I don’t want to live in the past anymore.”

“Great. Neither do I.” I clap my hands together as if she’d just said the magic words and I have the solution to all our problems. “Let’s focus on the future.Ourfuture.” I lead her to the outdoor sofa and tug her down next to me.

I want to tell her what I’ve decided. As she just pointed out, people change, and I know that I can too.

“Noah. I know,” she says quietly, hands folded on her lap, her body angled toward me. “I know what you did.” Her eyes search for mine and when she finds them, she says, “You lied.”

We’re back to this again? “Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have lied but—”

“I’m talking about the accident. You lied about what really happened. I remember it all now. I’m the one who caused the accident,” she says quietly.

For a moment, I think I must have misheard her. There’s no way she said that. But she repeats the words, a little louder thistime, and now there’s no way of pretending that I didn’t hear her correctly.