Page 37 of Pieces of Us

‘Let me guess.’ I tap my finger on my chin. ‘You were young. Stupid. Naive. Horny. Swayed by friends. Blinded by Billie’s bitchy fakeness. No. I have it.’ I snap my fingers. ‘I was never going to be your everything, like you were mine.’

His eyes jerk up to meet my now deflated demeanour at the realisation of how true that statement was. Blinking back tears, I walk slowly towards him to drive the final nail in the coffin. His eyes bore into mine, portraying a mixture of guilt and regret.

The pain ravishes my body, but I need to push through the trauma and scars he left me with.

‘You never believed in us. You didn’t believe we were ever going to make it past high school. I wasn’t your soulmate, like you were mine. I wasn’t your missing link. I didn’t hold your heart. You didn’t believe in our friendship, relationship or our love. Our future wasn’t worth fighting for, because you never saw me in it. I was simply never going to be your world, like you were mine.’

He remains quiet as I shoot every arrow I have into his chest. His eyes water, signifying how my rant is affecting him.

‘Well. Tell me. Have I nailed it?’

He bows his head as droplets fall from his eyes before he dashes them away.

Feeling defeated, I take a step back, pausing to say the one thing that hurt me the most.

‘You never said you were in love with me. You didn’t love me the way I fiercely loved you.’

He lifts his head immediately, eyes flashing in response to refute me.

‘I was young. Stupid. Persuaded. Torn. Conflicted. Blinded. Lonely. Frustrated you left. Despondent I lost you. Scared. Dumb. You name it, I probably was it.’

I swallow as my eyes drink in his tortured expression.

‘All the fucking above and more, Hart. But baby, don’t you ever think for a second I was never in love with you—or stopped loving you. Ever. I may not have told you in those exact words, but my entire life, you’ve been my obsession,’ he grounds out agonisingly.

With a distressed cry, I shove his chest.

This is the first time he has openly declared his love to me in words. This is how he tells me he loves—or loved—me after all these years? Seriously? I deserve better than that. I don’t deserve to be told after the fact. After what he’s done. The tears cascade down my face.

‘Then why? Why did you abandon us? Why did you give up on us? Why did you choose her instead of me? What did she have that I didn’t? Why did you move on, if you loved me so much? Why did you kill us?’

I whip my head furiously as I wipe at my grief-stricken face. ‘What did I do apart from leaving that warranted such brutality, not just from you and her, but from your friends? Why wasn’t I good enough for any of you? Why did you go behind my back and talk to her, even when we were together? Why did you let her ruin me with her words? Let all of them decimate me?’ Years of stored up pain pours out of me as I fail to hold back the flood of heart-wrenching tears.

‘Hart.’ His voice cuts through my sobs as he cups my face and lifts my head to his.

His eyes are red-rimmed, shimmering with emotion.

‘You never did anything to deserve what all of us did to you.’ He lowers his head to mine, the contact and closeness of him scrambling my emotions further.

‘I wish I had a good enough reason to tell you all the whys, but I don’t. All I can say is that I’ve made so many undeniable mistakes. Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Billie was always a means to an end. My feelings for her don’t even fall in the same universe as what I felt and feel for you.’

Hearing him say he had any feelings for her is like an ice bucket to the face.

I jerk back, hugging myself in protection.

‘But you had feelings for her. You chose her. You stayed with her for years. You had a connection. A relationship. A life together. Put yourself in my shoes. Imagine it was me who gave up on us, moving on with a close friend of yours. Then imagine that friend stabbing you in the back.’

‘You’re right, baby. The thought of you ever doing that is the worst.’

I regard him with silence, too exhausted after my mental breakdown.

He links his fingers with mine, a spark of something zipping up my arm.

‘I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. For hurting you. For breaking us.’ His sincereness stabs me, and it forces me to look over his shoulder at the closed, light wooden door. I don’t want to let him in more than I have tonight.

‘Don’t you get it, Lincoln? It’s hard to breathe right now. It’s so fucking hard to breathe with you near me. I have to go. Tell your dad I couldn’t find the files.’

He tightens his grip, locking my hand in his. ‘Please don’t go, Hart. We have so much more to wade through.’

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