Page 68 of Rejected Heart

And there was just another apology to add to the list.

I lifted the glass to my lips and swallowed down more than was reasonable. Anger raged inside me.

All these apologies and not a single explanation.

“It was just as difficult for me to learn you were back in town,” I muttered.

“Liam, I?—”

“What, Layla? What do you want to say?”

Tears filled her eyes. Even after all the hurt and devastation she’d caused, it killed me to see them.

“You’re so angry with me.” Her voice was ragged, like I’d scraped knives down her throat.

For several beats, I stared at her, feeling dumbfounded. Did she think it was possible to feel happy? Did she think I could pretend it hadn’t happened? Was she naïve enough to believe that stupid saying about time healing all wounds?

It didn’t.

I’d been bleeding since the day she left.

Regardless of the efforts my family and friends made to staunch it, some wounds would never heal. And while the people who loved me had helped to ease some of the pain, to stop the damage from being so severe, Layla showing up had ripped those gashes in my heart wide open again.

I spent so much time trying to figure out where her mind could possibly be to think it was wrong for me to feel angry, Layla took the opportunity to speak again.

“You’ve never spoken to me like this. I haven’t made all the best decisions in the world. Trust me, I know I’ve made huge mistakes, but you’re not the man I remember.”

I was dizzy with rage.

She didn’t get it. How could she not understand?

Turning my body slightly toward her, my hand flew to the center of my chest. “You broke my heart, Layla. You left me without any explanation. I don’t know what lies you’ve been telling yourself all these years, but what you did wasn’t just a mistake. You destroyed me.”

My throat grew painfully tight. It felt like I waspleading with her to understand, to grasp some small sense of the damage she’d done.

“I’ve had to try to navigate the last eight years of my life without the one person I always thought would be there. Can you grasp how incredibly difficult that has been for me?”

Layla swiped at a rogue tear that had escaped. “I never wanted to hurt you, Liam. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, and I understood it would take time to get over it, but I never meant to inflict this level of pain on you. I messed up. I was screwed up in my head back then. I still am. But I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you. I left because I did. I still do.”

No.

No, she couldn’t sit here and claim to love me after she’d ripped my heart from my chest and left a wasteland in its place.

Everything ached. My chest, my throat, my limbs. The ache was a mix of pain and longing. I wanted her.

I wanted all of it.

Even knowing it was bound to destroy me again, I’d reach out to have just one more opportunity to have it all.

“I’ve missed you every day since you left.”

Layla’s fingernails dug into the skin on her thighs as I shared the reality of what I’d endured.

“I’ve missed all of it. I’ve missed holding you, kissing you, smelling you. I’ve missed laughing with you and feeling your hands on my skin. And I’ve stopped dreaming. I’ve stopped wishing for some perfect future becauseit no longer exists. Not without you. You took all of that away from me, Layla.”

Another tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away. It made it to her jaw and dripped down onto her dress.

“I’m so sorry for what I did, Liam.”

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