Page 94 of Wilder Love
“She told you that?”
“She didn’t have to. I know Remy.”
“What do you know about Remy?” Firefly sat next to me on the grass and drew her knees to her chest.
Dylan got to his feet and stood in front of Remy. “I know that you should have minded your own fucking business.”
“If you told me what was going on in your life, I wouldn’t have to eavesdrop on your conversations.”
Dylan scowled and shook his head, looking over his shoulder toward the house. “Where’s the princess?”
“She went home. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” He strode away, disappearing into the shadows, leaving me and Remy sitting under a towering palm overlooking the lights of Costa del Rey.
Remy sighed and leaned back against the fence, chipping away at the polish on her nails. “I don’t know why they keep going back for more. All they ever do is hurt each other. Underneath his moody, broody exterior, Dylan is vulnerable. He never believed he was good enough. Never thought he deserved someone like Sienna. But it’s not true. He deserves so much better. He needs someone who fights for him the way he fights for the people he loves. Someone who keeps their promises just like he does. Dylan hides it well, but he has such a big heart. If only Sienna had handled it with care. He would have given her the world.”
Remy turned her sad face toward me and I knew this was just as much about us as it was about Dylan and Sienna. I was doing this to her. I was making her miserable. All I’d ever wanted was to make her happy, to see her smile. To protect her from the bad shit in her life. But I had failed on all counts.
“I don’t know how to fix us or make things right,” she said.
“Some things can’t be fixed. Sometimes you have to start over.”
“Is that what we’re doing? Is this the new us? Am I just a willing body to you?”
“No. You’re so much more. You always were.”
“It hurts.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I’m just trying to get my life back together and it’s hard,” I said, being more honest than I’d been with her since she came back. I wanted to talk to her the way we used to talk. Back when I could tell her everything. “It’s so fucking hard.”
“I’m so sorry. For everything that happened,” she said. “I just want to be here for you. Ineedto be here for you. Please don’t shut me out. I’m still that same girl, you know? The girl who doesn’t like to say goodbye. The girl who’s scared of being left behind.”
“I know. I know who you are.”
“Am I being stupid, fooling myself into thinking that there’s still a chance for us?”
I didn’t have any answers for her. I was just as lost as she was right now. “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”
I reached into my pocket and handed her the set of keys she’d given me. She took them from me and wrapped her hand around them. “I guess that was a bad idea.”
“A good idea but not for us.”
She exhaled loudly and nodded. “Guess not. I wanted it to work. I wanted sex with no strings attached.”
It would have never worked for us. Even our first kiss had strings attached. I stood up and held out my hand. She took it and I pulled her to her feet, checking that she’d put on shoes before I walked her back to the house, past the chairs and cushions still floating in the pool and around the ruins on the patio that Dylan hadn’t bothered cleaning up.
I left her with a kiss and no goodbye. Remy hated goodbyes.
36
Remy
“We know we’re not good for each other but it’s like an addiction. We can’t quit each other. But I think this time… I think we really have to call it quits. It just hurts too much.”
Sienna’s eyes were puffy from crying and she was pale under her tan. Loving Dylan had taken its toll. On her and on him. How long could you try to hang onto something that just wasn’t working?
“I’m not the girl he needs,” she said, her voice sad. “I wanted to be. I tried.”
