Page 49 of After Our Kiss

My shoulders thumped into the plaster. Was this how Lonnie had felt when I'd swung at him with my shard of glass? Conway was acting erratic.

Another step. He was so close. “I couldn't handle listening to her cry anymore, nothing I said or did soothed her. I left to clear my head, I just needed some damn space.” His expression exploded like brittle steel. His shoulders began to shake. “When I came back later, she was dead.” He wrapped his fingers in his hair, his voice cracking. “Anna suffocated herself. Tangled her face in the bed sheets.”

That's why he never gave me sheets or blankets.Grasping the reasons behind Facile's decisions turned my bones into jelly. What was worse was realizing that Conway had followed his guidance.

“Do you understand how badly she must have wanted to escape, if she could have done that to herself?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said solemnly. “I do.”

“Exactly. Fuck, of course you get it.” He turned away, his head thrashing. “Dad blamed me. He was right to, you know? It was my fucking fault she died. Anna could have... maybe, like you, she could have... If I'd realized sooner I could have saved her. But I was too scared. I was a useless coward then, just like I am now.”

He was pleading with me to hate him. At the same time, he was begging me to understand. And I did—as messed up as this all was, I really did get what he was telling me. Anna's death had weighed on him this whole time.

Thanks to her he'd gone out of his way to free me.

Curling my arms around his stone-hard body, I hugged Conway from behind. “It wasn't your fault! It was an accident! You can't let this drag you down forever.”

He didn't toss me aside, but he didn't soften, either. “You think it matters if I wasn't the one who pushed her face into the mattress? Georgia, my sins have been building every year and they haven't stopped.”

A flicker of resentment turned my voice cold. “You could stop one of them right now.”

He pulled away, turning to watch me. “I can't set you free. It's not that easy.”

“Why, because you enjoy breaking me apart?” I clawed the air between us. “Just listen to yourself! Anna is a huge regretto this day,you saved me because you were afraid I'd turn out like her. So how the hell can you drag me here and do this all again?”

“You don't understand,” he said, biting each vowel. His teeth remained bared, eyes wild. Lost. “I can't handle it!”

“Handlewhat?”

“The thought of anyone else I love dying.”

We both froze. He'd been breathing heavily, but now he stopped breathing at all. His pupils were hard to see in the wide expanse of his eyes. “You love me?” I asked.

His hands closed on mine, yanking me against his chest. He clung to me like he expected me to fade away. “Of course I do. Ever since the night you cried while asking me to be your first kiss. I felt a warmth grow in me that I'd never experienced before. It's been there ever since.”

He loves me.

Conway bruised my lips with his, digging his fingers into my hair. He was a man intent on leaving marks across my whole being. It would have been easy to get lost in this moment. But my life was never meant to be easy.

Pressing my elbows upwards, I broke his hold, backing away. “No. Just—no.” Hot tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes. My righteous anger wasn't enough to will them away. “If you loved me—if you loved me the way I loveyou,you'd help me.”

The shock in his face had my heart crumbling into dust. “I can't.”

“What does your father have over you that's controlling you like this?” When he gaped at me, full of wretched pain, I knew I was right. “Tell me. Please, just help me understand why.”

“It would be so much easier for us both if you would just hate me,” he said softly.

“Your mistake was thinking I was ever capable of hating you.”

Every part of his face that could move did—the bridge of his nose crinkled, the rows in his forehead deepened, the fine lines at the edges of his eyes bloomed. He was a black hole upon himself, absorbing my feelings and unable to deny them any longer.

On stiff legs he came back to me. From his pocket he pulled out a phone; I'd never seen it until now. “Before I show you this,” he said, typing in a pass code, “I need you to know that I hoped to keep it a secret forever. I really, truly wanted you to loath me. I never deserved your pity—I never wanted it.” He paused, then he handed me the device. “Don't let this shift your opinion of me into a positive light. Men like me don't deserve that. I madeeverychoice that got us here, and I'll answer for all of them in the afterlife.”

Shaking under his watchful eyes, I held the phone gingerly.

I didn't know what I expected to see when I looked at the screen.

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