Page 109 of Sweet Ruin

“I’m not perfect,” he continued. “But, just so you know, I would never doubt you like that.”

I tried not to let his words get to me. I really did. But I suddenly found myself struggling not to cry. “I’ll be back in a moment,” I said, rising from my chair.

“Isobel…” Noah called after me, but I didn’t look back at him as I walked away. His words had wormed their way under my skin, and the tears I’d been keeping at bay threatened to fall.

I’d been trying my best not to think about my argument with Wes, but Noah was right. He had struggled to trust me since the start. And despite our best efforts to overcome that, he no longer felt I was worth it. He’d let me walk away and hadn’t come after me. What did that say about the way he felt about me? What did that say about our future together? I’d experienced too much heartbreak this year, and I wasn’t ready to face it again.

It felt like I’d been fighting for my relationship with Wes for weeks though, and I wasn’t sure I could keep going. I cared about him so much, but I felt like he wasn’t ever going to trust me the way I deserved. I didn’t want us to be over, and while Wes hadn’t said those exact words, the empty feeling in my gut warned me we probably already were.

By the time I returned to Noah’s room, the doctor had arrived to see him. Noah kept trying to catch my eye, but my focus remained on the doctor.

She inspected Noah thoroughly and confirmed his concussion. Thankfully though, Noah hadn’t done any serious damage to his head when he’d fallen, and the doctor was much less concerned than I had been when I’d heard his skull crack against the icy ground. She told him to make sure he got plenty of rest and was extra careful on the ice. Much to my relief, Noah was going to be fine.

Once I knew he was okay, I couldn’t wait to get out of the emergency room. My haste was partly because I needed some space from Noah so I could try to process everything that had happened that afternoon. But also, it was because I was still wearing nothing but a bikini and Noah’s sweatshirt. Not only was I uncomfortable, but I must have looked ridiculous.

“So, do you think we’ll ever stop falling for each other?” Noah said with a grin as we made our way to the car.

The question elicited memories of us tumbling to the ground in the woods of him wrapping his arms around my waist to save me as my skis hurled out of control, of him staring lovingly into my eyes on the beach, and all those little moments when he’d share a fleeting smile that only I ever got to see.

They were memories I didn’t want to think about right now. And I definitely wasn’t ready to joke about what had happened today when we’d fallen on the ice and knocked him unconscious. Now that I knew he wasn’t seriously injured, it felt like I could be angry with him again. That seemed like a far safer focus for my pent-up energy.

“You scared me half to death today,” I said. “You know that, right?”

“It was just a little fall.”

“Just a little fall? I had to rush you to hospital.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t been so stubborn and just got in the car like I asked, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

“Or maybe if you hadn’t insisted on forcing me into the car against my will, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“You were being too reckless,” he said.

“You were being too persistent.”

“God, I love you, Isobel.”

I fell silent, and the blood rushed from my skin. My heart seemed to both swell and shatter at the sound of that word. How easily he said it. How he looked at me like I was everything to him. How he could still feel that way about me when I’d spent weeks telling him he shouldn’t.

He gave me a sad smile, like he knew exactly what was going through my head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have…”

“But I’m not sorry that I did. Yes, it’s not fair of me, but I don’t really care. I love you, Isobel, and I would happily fall a million times over if it meant I got to hold you in my arms like I did today.”

I forced myself to glance away. “We should get home.”

He nodded, but as we climbed into the truck, he continued. “You can try to ignore this all you want, Crash. But that won’t change the way I feel about you. Nothing will ever change that.”

I refused to look at him. Refused to listen to him. Refused to let his words burrow their way into my soul. But it was growing harder to ignore how much he cared about me. And after seeing him hurt today, I was starting to realize there were feelings inside me that might also be too strong to ignore any longer.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

As I turned the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled to life, I felt calm. The nerves I was so used to feeling when I sat in the driver’s seat remained at bay as I reversed out of the parking space and drove out of the lot.

Something had clicked when I’d been hyper focused on getting Noah to the hospital. The part of me that had been terrified of driving ever since I crashed my mom’s car was gone. Maybe it was because I’d experienced a moment of true terror when Noah was unconscious, and my anxiety about driving paled in comparison. Or perhaps Noah was right, and I’d always been a capable driver, but my overthinking and worrying had gotten in the way. Now that I knew I could do it, my doubts no longer took control and convinced me that I couldn’t.

The only time we talked as I drove us home was when Noah gave me directions to the house. I’d been trying my best not to think about the things he’d said to me in the parking lot, but they kept spinning around in my head. As we neared the end of the cul-de-sac and the houses we were staying in, I started to think about seeing Wes again.

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