“Then there was the joy of listening to my father beg his friend in the admissions office to give me my spot back after I’d declared that true love was more worthwhile than an Ivy League education. And you know who was apologizing then? Me. Apologizing for you. You didn’t just break my heart—you annihilated it. You pulverized me and then went on your merry way like nothing had even happened.”
My heart ached with the emotions I’d done my best to lock away since he walked out, but they were now screaming to be acknowledged and set free. But I couldn’t let them out. It was like Pandora’s box in there, and the minute I let any of them slip, the slivers of me that wanted to believe him—the ones yelling the loudest that this was the man I’d loved—would run amok and then I’d be right back where I was two years ago. Destroyed, angry, and loving the man I desperately needed to hate.
I saw a group of girls from our class come toward us but didn’t pause. If I was going to allow myself this one moment to let it go, I wasn’t holding back.
“You went back to the Renegades and left me to pick up the pieces you shattered. Maybe I was the whore for cheating on Wilder, for falling in love with you. Maybe I am your curse. But I didn’t deserve to bear the entire weight of what we’d both done.” My throat tightened, and I blinked quickly, fighting back the prickling sensation in my eyes. I would not cry over him. Never again.
“You’re right.” His fingers tugged at his hair momentarily in obvious frustration. “But I wasn’t undamaged. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about you, wonder where you were.”
“Hey, Nova,” one of the girls said, eye fucking Landon as she waltzed by, swaying her ass.
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Good thing you had tons of girls to soothe that hurt, Nova.”
He put up his hands in surrender. “Okay. Valid point made. I’m a dick, I did dick things, and then I overused said dick in what has been a failed attempt to get over you. Got it. But seeing you again—whether or not it was Wilder’s doing—I guess I knew we couldn’t start over, but I was hoping that we could at least be friends. You were my best friend, Rachel.”
I swallowed. “No. Wilder was. You chose him, and it took me a really long time to accept that as my reality. I waited the first few weeks for you to come back, for an explanation, for you to tell me that those promises we’d made to each other really meant something to you, because our plans, our future, our relationship meant everything to me, and I was so fucking stupid to love you like I did because you moved on like I was nothing to you.” My voice broke, and I took a steadying breath, fumbling over my stupid feelings to get a grip. “Yes, we’re stuck together for the next six months, but being friends? That’s too much. That Rachel—the silly eighteen-year-old you said was your infinity—you killed her. My heart stopped the moment I saw you on that TV screen, and that naive little girl in my soul didn’t die…she just ceased to be. So if I’m cold, callous, or unforgiving, then I’m simply what you made me.” I shook my head. “No, I’m what I made myself to make sure that I was never fooled again.”
“I’m not trying to fool you,” he said quietly, his eyes soft and warm—and everything I’d missed about him came rushing back in.
I saw him standing in the rain three years ago, waiting for me the afternoon we’d finally given in to our feelings. I saw the boy he’d been—so passionate, so protective—lying just under the surface of the man before me.
For a second I saw my Landon under Nova…and that was dangerous. My defenses started to shake, a vulnerability I hadn’t felt in years, and I scrambled for some kind of ladder to get me out of the pit of emotion he’d dragged me into.
“This is the only time you’ll bribe me like this,” I said, my tone stronger than I felt. “Thanks to Leah, Wilder has already told me that I can be in on whatever you guys are doing, and I intend to take him up on it. I’ll never give up anything for you ever again. So let’s just be honest.”
His jaw tensed, those eyes a turbulent sea of blue and green. “Okay. Be honest.”
“I loved you. You broke me. No matter what connection we still have, I won’t ever let you close enough to do it again. That’s the place we’re at.” It was the only place I could afford to be, no matter how loudly my body sang when he was near, or how the deadened little lump of my heart had the nerve to flicker back to life at the sound of his voice.
He stalked forward until my ass hit the stone wall behind me and then caged me with his arms. “You got to be honest. My turn.”
“Okay,” I said, tilting my chin and hoping I looked unaffected by his nearness. Maybe if I quit breathing, stopped taking in his cedar-and-Landon scent, my body would forget that I knew his intimately.
Instead my own body went traitor and sent heat coursing through my veins, like it remembered every sensation he was capable of producing. The intensity in his eyes stole the air from my lungs and stripped me of my bravado when I needed it the most.
“I loved you,” he said, his voice low. “I broke myself—whether or not you saw it doesn’t change that fact. I’ll respect your wishes. I’ll keep my distance. But that connection you’re talking about? Yeah, it’s still there, still humming through my goddamned nervous system every time you walk in the fucking room, so as much as you’d like to, you can’t control my thoughts or what I want.”