Page 170 of Rules

“Max, I can’t go through this again,” she pleads with me, more and more tears filling her eyes.

“Brook.” I try to hold her, but she wiggles out of my reach. Fat tears fall down her cheeks as she looks at the ceiling, blinking her eyes in hopes that they’ll stop. And if my heart hadn’t broken until this moment, looking at her now, I could feel it shatter into thousands of pieces.

“All my life, I’ve never been good enough.” She looks at me, those broken eyes glued to mine. Standing right there only a few steps away, with tears spilling down her cheeks, her hands gripping into fists by her sides, she looks more beautiful than ever. “Not once. My mother never loved me. For her, I was mostly a nuisance until I became a means to an end. My father didn’t want me. For him, I was just a mistake that needed to be buried deep down so it didn’t ruin his perfect life. And you… the only person I let myself selfishly want, although I knew better, didn’t want me.”

“Brook, that’s…”

“I can’t do this again, Max,” she interrupts me. Closing the distance between us, her hands grip my shirt. Desperation like I’ve never heard clear in her voice. “I can’t. Don’tmakeme do this again. I can’t be second best. I don’t want to be somebody’s second choice. A consolation prize.”

My hands wrap around her, pulling her closer just as her small fists pound at my chest. Brook repeats those words over and over again. Soft, barely audible murmurs whispered into the crook of my neck as I hold on to her.

“Shhh…” I bury my head in her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. “It’ll all be okay, baby.”

Brook tries to resist my touch, but there is no way I’m letting go. Not now. Not ever.

Letting her retreat just enough so that I can see her tear-stained face clearly, I cup her cheeks, bringing us closer.

In this moment, I know that if I wasn’t already in love with her, I’d fall right now. I think I’m falling for her this very moment. All over again. Falling for all the beautifully broken pieces that make Brook Taylor the woman she is.

“Listen to me. I know what you think, but you have it all wrong. Hell, I had it all wrong for a while, too. I thought I was in love with Lia, but I was wrong. I was in love with the idea of a person like Amelia. Somebody who needed me. God knows you’re strong on your own, and after everything that happened to Jeanette and her pulling away and closing off from everybody including me, hertwin, I needed somebody to needme.I know it sounds fucked up, but it’s true. For as long as I can remember, it was Jeanette and me, but then out of nowhere, she didn’t need me anymore. Didn’t want me. And there she was. Lia, sweet, innocent Lia. She reminded me so much of the girl Jeanette was that the connection was instant.”

“You fell in love with her.”

There is so much sadness in Brook’s words, but I need her to understand how wrong she is. How wrong I was from the beginning. Yes, I liked Lia just fine, but this desperation, this need, overwhelming and intense that takes over me, it’s all Brook. Nobody can turn my world upside down like this girl can.

“She needed me, and I needed somebody to save, but then things with her and Derek sorted out and I was pissed because she had him, and where the hell did that leave me? Back to square one because this need inside of me didn’t go away like I thought it would. And then you came… You were everything I couldn’t stand but all I could think about. So wrong… We were so wrong and messed up, did everything in reverse to how it’s supposed to go. We fought and hurt each other, but I’m done, Brook. I’m done fighting with you. I’m done fighting with myself because I love you, and I want to be with you. You’re my everything.My all. Everything else, we’ll figure out eventually.”

More tears escape her, so many there is no catching them all.

“But that’s the thing. It’s not only me, Max. There is no ‘eventually.’ I can’t think like that anymore. There is here and now, and if I don’t figure out my shit, more than one life will be ruined forever.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, forcing the word out. “W-What?”

The hands, which were just moments ago hanging by her sides, straighten that too-big shirt over her middle. Plastered against her body, I can finally see what I couldn’t before. A small, barely noticeable bump.

Stumbling back, my eyes stay glued to her middle. With my heart galloping in my chest, I look at her hands almost protectively wrapped around herself, one holding the underside of her belly while the other is softly placed on top of it.

Somewhere in the background, I can hear a wheezing sound, and after a while, I realize it’s me. I’m the one who’s breathing so hard it sounds like an animal is dying, the ringing in my ears so loud I can barely hear her words.

“I’m pregnant.”

I knew it was a possibility, but nothing could have prepared me for all these feelings that crashed into me when I saw her, bump and all. Nothing.

Fear and excitement so intense, it was hard to think.

Hard to breathe.

“H-How?”

Chapter Sixty-Two

BROOK

It’s like he’s seen a ghost. His face is so pale it’s almost see-through. The gray of his irises is swallowed by wide pupils, a sheen of sweat coating his forehead.

In a way, he most likely did see a ghost showing him exactly how things will look after today. I sure as hell saw mine when I saw that plus sign on the pregnancy test.

I’ve never been more scared in my whole life. I was drowning, and there wasn’t a way out. It felt like I’d been punished, punished for something really bad I must have done in my previous life, because what was the other option? Why was life always so hard? It was all too much. Going to Max to tell him what was going on, only to be pushed away. Josephine stealing all the money I had saved for my new beginning. Fighting with Lia and spilling everything I’d been holding back for months.

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