Page 95 of All of You

He nodded, a regretful smile on his face, and a knowing look in those depthless eyes. “Extremely effective. I had mine removed when I was quite young—does wonders.”

We went about the motions of the show, our performance, our gracious acceptance of the award. The thrill of winning registered for just a moment before I remembered I had exactly no one to share it with. No one who was actually proud of me, who supported me, and who would have been just as proud without the win.

No one like Ben. And I knew I never would.

A bone-deep conviction that I had to try, at least once, to get him back and tell him how important he was settled in my chest. Reese was right—if I kept waiting, giving him space, collecting myself and hoping some miraculous plan would appear to me in a dream, I’d lose him for good.

And as much as I’d grieved in the last few weeks, I’d been grieving over my mistakes, and over hurting him. I hadn’t begun to grieve the possibility that I’d lost him, not really. I couldn’t face that, and I couldn’t believe it. Not yet.

Not without one last try.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Ben

Iwas two hours into a The Lord of the Rings marathon when the knock on my door came. I’d gone to church, but skipped lunch, and no one had hassled me about it.

Thatcher had cornered me after, confirmed I was okay, and then let it go. Even if he couldn’t acknowledge he understood what it was like to need space about something like this, I knew he did, and that was why he’d given the hood of my truck a double tap and turned back to the usual lunch crew.

So it wasn’t likely to be Thatch, though maybe it was. Or it could be Flint, who’d been moody ever since pizza at his place. Or for all I knew, it could have been the landlord.

The knock came again, so I paused the movie and shoved my feet into my slippers to shuffle to the door. I pulled the panel open, and before I could do anything, even say hello, Whit Grantham had shoved past me into my apartment.

“Do come in,” I said, shutting the door and turning to watch her take in the apartment for only the second time.

My eyes devoured the sight of her as my pulse pounded at being near her, having her in my space again, even as my heart twisted, crushed in on itself.

Fitted jeans, long sweater unbuttoned to reveal a T-shirt underneath, long hair pulled back into a braid. Regular make up. She was coming to me dressed down, not after an event or something public.

Though I’d made a point not to pay attention, the Internet liked to push her in my face using headlines in even the most news-focused places. She and Jamie Morris had won their Oscar last week—good for them.

“I’m sorry to barge in, but I need you to listen to me.” Her gaze slid quickly over me, then bounced back up to my face. “Can you do that?”

My gut said no. Just hearing her voice felt like steel wool in my throat, but I would never forgive myself if I didn’t let her say whatever it was she needed to. There was a chance it would make me feel worse—that she’d admit she never gave a damn about me and had used me all along.

But if there was a chance she’d say something to make sense of this mess, this wreckage, then I couldn’t say no.

“I can.” My voice came out low and steady, an excellent deception.

I held a hand out in the direction of the living room. We sat, me on one end of the couch, her on the other. I turned off the TV and resisted the urge to clench my fists and brace against the moment.

“First, I am sorry I lied to you.”

“What about?” I asked, not to be malicious, but because there had been multiple lies, based on my understanding.

She winced, but didn’t protest. “I should have told you we’d met before when Reese introduced us. I should have told you right then that you’d inspired the song.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I’d only wondered that every hour since the big reveal.

“I was so thrown that you were you when you came to Reese’s door, I just… I didn’t say anything. And then you acted like you’d never seen me, so I figured you didn’t remember, or hadn’t realized it was me. I’d worn a blond wig that night, so that wasn’t impossible.” She inched forward where she sat, angled to me.

I nodded, cuing her to go on.

“After that, I just felt silly saying anything because we were hardly even friends. But then, we were friends, and I should have told you, but I’d already not told you, so I was scared of how you’d react.” She pressed her lips together, her shoulders sinking. “And then, after we started really dating, I worried about the pressure it might put on you, and even more about not having told you yet. That just kept getting worse.”

“What made you decide to tell me in front of millions of strangers?

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