Page 157 of Secrets (The Sins Trilogy 2)
I hesitate, not wanting to burden her with the gruesome detail, but her eyes are telling me she won’t tolerate any holding back. And this is my fault too. If I’d been honest from the beginning, she wouldn’t be insisting on knowing everything. “There’s a lot of small wildlife in a bayou. Crabs, shrimp, all kinds of water bugs…they tear skin and eat it. The weather was warm, too.”
Ivy sways slightly. I start to step forward, ready to catch her.
She raises a hand. “Don’t. I’m perfectly capable of standing on my own.”
I freeze. The rejection cuts, leaving a deep gash in my heart. She used to let me support her, lend her my strength and more. And I loathe myself for being the cause of this. How the fuck do you screw up so many damn times?
Ultimately, I have two questions. I’m going to get them out before I leave. “I’m sorry, Ivy,” I say again, because I can’t say that enough. “Do you hate me?”
A tense beat. “I don’t know,” she says.
A clear yes or no would’ve been preferable. This is worse, especially when she speaks so woodenly. It’s as though she’s so dead inside that she can’t even bring herself to hate me. I should give up now, but I can’t. I have to ask the other thing, get it all out. “Can you forgive me? Give me another chance?” It’s shameless, but I want another miracle. Just one more. For that, I’ll sell my soul.
Ivy looks at me long and hard. Suddenly she sighs, her shoulders drooping. “Even if I could forgive you, giving you another chance wouldn’t be easy.”
My mind holds on to three words—forgive and another chance. She didn’t say it was impossible. Just not easy. Hope unfurls in my heart. I can convince her. I just have to try harder. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“How? I can never have faith in you now.” Unshed tears glint in her eyes. She cranes her neck and blinks fast, before lowering her chin to face me. “You lied to me all along. You were my constant, the one person I trusted from the beginning. Otherwise I would’ve never let myself fall in love with you so quickly and absolutely.”
Her words contain staggering pain. I expected this be difficult—humbling, even—but it’s far worse than the time I begged for forgiveness from Mother. She told me not even my death could earn her absolution, and I never got a second chance to fix what I broke in my family. But this situation with Ivy is even more agonizing. Fate, for whatever reason, decided to give me another opportunity. And I repeated the exact same mistake—I let my fear drive me. Again.
Ivy saying she no longer has faith in me puts a nail into my heart. I know the kind of person she is. If she’s lost faith in me, she’ll never love me again, never leave herself vulnerable to me again, and she’ll always be on guard around me. Staying with me would cause nothing but misery for her.
I’ve lost her.
