Page 84 of The Road to Ruined

"You don't want to sit by me? I don't bite."

"No, but you lie. I'm not worried about biting," I tell him.

"I sent you flowers—tulips like the ones we saw in Portland. Did you get them?"

"No. I mean…I guess. I didn't know they were from you."

"How could you not?"

I scoff. "You left me withnothing.Why would I?"

"You look really pretty," he says.

"I look like shit, Declan."

"Not to me," he says. "You're still the only thing I want to look at in an otherwise beige world, whether you believe it or not. Teagan, I never thought it was going to be like that. When I left you, I thought it would be something they'd clean up and everything would go back to normal. I thought we'd be touring again in the fall. And you three were supposed to stay together; you weren't supposed to be alone."

"Yeah, but I was alone! And River and Hazel were in jail for months waiting foryouto help them and you didn't. We were supposed to be a family—you said you'd take care of us."

"I couldn't! You don't think I wanted to? The feds would have found the paper trail, and they would have punished both of them for it. And they will kill me before they'll let the FBI catch me."

"They? You mean The Order?"

"Yeah," he says shaking his head. "What have you been up to, Teagan?"

I shrug. "I've done what I had to do to survive because of the mess you left me in."

"Have you seen them? River and Hazel?"

I nod. "Once."

"How were they?"

I scoff. "Are you kidding? Awful. They were terrified, and for good reason. They had to change their appearances, they were afraid someone was trying to kill them, and they couldn't get jobs or anything, either. You have all the money in the world, and they were worried about running out of food." I pause, swallowing hard. "River was sad, and Hazel was angry."

"Do you think Hazel meant those things she said about me on TV?"

"I know she did," I tell him. "She hates you."

It's quiet for a minute before he asks, "Teagan, where are they? I can't find them anymore."

"They're gone now…for good. They got new identities and left a few days ago. I don't know where they went."

"It makes me sick," he says. "It makes me physically fucking sick that she could think of me like that—that she's going to think of me like that for the rest of her life. God fucking damn it."

"Well, what did you expect to happen? You chose yourself."

"I told you, Teagan—I didn't fucking know. I was fucking naive because everything has always been easy for me, and I didn't fucking know. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?"

"That's not good enough!"

"Well, what do you want?" he shouts. He pushes off the chair hard enough that it topples over behind him and moves toward me, stopping just a few inches in front of me. In the past, it would have scared me to see him like this, but not anymore. "I've said it before, and I'll tell you a thousand times over. You canhaveanythingyou want from me. Just tell me what it is. What will it take to convince you that I love you, Teagan? Huh? That I'msorry,and I know I fucked up. Do you want to cut my heart out, Teagan? Because the way you're looking at me right now…you might as well. It's fucking killing me."

"You don't get it…"

"Trust me, Teagan, I get it—"

"No, you don't! You don't get it! Declan…" I pause, shaking my head, tears pooling in my eyes again. "You were my port in the storm. And there was a storm, and I was all alone! You don't know how bad it was for me."

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