Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
RONAN
She’s standing on the porch like something ripped straight from a memory. A reminder of nights I spent staring at walls, replaying the way she used to look at me, and waking up choking on her name.
For five breaths, neither of us moves.
“What are you doing here?” My voice comes out low and steady. Nothing about it betrays the way my heart is slamming against my ribs.
Her fingers curl into fists at her sides. “I want answers.”
I prop one shoulder against the doorframe, the picture of relaxation, while inside everything is coiled tight.
“About what?” I already know the answer to that. I can read it in the tension thrumming through her body, and the way she’s braced for impact.
“Why have you come back here?”
“Does it matter?”
She takes a step closer. The porch light catches her face, and my breath seizes in my lungs.
The years have changed her in obvious ways.
There’s a new firmness to her jaw. She carries herself a little differently.
But her eyes are the same. They still see too much. They still make me want to look away.
“Yes!” She moves forward another step. She’s close enough now that I can smell her perfume. Something light and fresh. “Yes, it matters!”
“Why? Because you can’t stand not knowing? Because it’s eating you alive the same way it is for the rest of the town? Are you wondering what brought Graystone’s favorite failure back?”
Silence falls between us, broken only by the sound of the wind.
“You’re different.” Her voice is soft.
My fingers itch to reach for her. I shove them into my pockets instead.
“What do you want, Lily?”
“The truth!”
“Which truth? The one about how I fucked up and got exactly what I deserved? I think you know that story already.”
“Stop it.” She moves closer still, and everything in me screams to back away, and put space between us before I forget why I need to keep my distance. “You don’t get to stand there and act like—”
“Like the fuck-up everyone saw me as?” I hike an eyebrow.
“God, you’re still so—” She runs a hand through her hair, shaking her head. The movement draws my eyes to the curve of her neck, and hunger hits me like a physical thing. “You push people away the second they get too close. You did it then, and you’re doing it now.”
“Maybe people should take the hint and stay away then.”
“Why?” Her head tilts, and she studies me out of eyes that have haunted my dreams for years. “Because you don’t deserve friendship? Or because it’s easier than letting someone close enough to care?”
“Are you still trying to save me, Lily?” The words are mocking, but the space between us is charged. My pulse is thundering in my ears. I need to get control of this. “Is that what this is about? Do you still need to prove you can fix all the broken things?”
Color floods her cheeks. “That’s not fair.”
“No? Then why?” I tap my lips, letting my eyes slide over her. “Are you curious what five years inside did to me? Want to know if I’ve learned any lessons?”
“You didn’t deserve—”
“You have no fucking idea about what I deserved.”
She flinches at the bite in my voice, but stands her ground. “I know you. Better than anyone. I saw past every wall you built, every lie you told, and every time you tried to convince yourself you weren’t worth saving.”
The truth of it burns, but I can’t let her see that. I can’t allow her to break through the armor I’ve spent years building.
“You saw what you wanted to see.” My tone is dismissive. “The project. The charity case. The broken kid sleeping in abandoned buildings that you could save to prove you were better than everyone else in this fucking town.”
“That isn’t true. I saw you. I saw a boy who wrote in book margins, and looked at me like …” She shakes her head again, pressing her lips together.
The move brings my eyes to her mouth, and the need to touch her is so strong, I almost reach out. Instead, I laugh, a harsh, brittle sound, my lip curling.
“Go home, Lily.” I start to turn away.
“You won’t even look at me,” she whispers. “Just like in the courtroom.”
Her words burrow under my skin. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Talk about how you shut down, or ask why you pulled away from me?”
“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s why I’m asking! I know you better than anyone, but the way you behaved didn’t make sense.”
“You only knew what I wanted you to know. You were as blind as everyone else to the truth.”
“That isn’t how it was. Stop trying to turn it into something ugly. I remember the notes you’d leave for me.”
“Don’t you get it? I wrote what you wanted to hear.” I choose each word to cut. “I played my part. The damaged kid learning to trust. A lost soul finding his way. It must have made you feel pretty fucking special, thinking you were the only one who could save me.”
“Stop it!”
“Why? The truth is I was hungry and cold, and you offered food and warmth.”
“That’s not all it was. I loved you, and you loved me. You can lie about everything else, but don’t lie about that.”
“We had nothing.” The lie burns on its way out. “I was a scared kid pretending they cared because it was better than being alone. And you …” I shrug. “You were an easy mark.”
“Shut up!” She moves too fast for me to avoid, and her fingers twist into the front of my shirt. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to pretend what we had wasn’t real.”
Before I can stop myself, my hands fall to her waist. I spin us both until her back hits the wall beside the door. She gasps, her hands tightening in my shirt.
“Is this what you want, Lily?” My voice is rough, a mix of anger and desperation. “Do you want to prove you still reach me? Are you still trying to save me?”
“I want the truth.” Her breath fans across my face, and everything in me aches to close the distance between us. To taste her, and ignore all the reasons why I can’t let this happen.
“The truth?” I lean closer, letting her feel the hardness of my chest, the strength that prison helped to build.
“The truth is simple. I’m not that boy anymore, and you still can’t fix what’s broken inside me.
The truth, Lily, is that you need to forget whatever fantasy you’ve built about me, because the kid you knew died the second those cuffs went on his wrists. ”
She makes a sound like I’ve physically hurt her, but her hands don’t loosen their grip. “I don’t believe you.”
“Is that right?” I press closer, using my body to trap her against the wall. “Look at me, Lily. Really look. You see your precious project here? The one you wrote all those pretty notes to?”
“Stop it.” Tears are filling her eyes now, but she doesn’t look away. She never fucking could.
“Why?” I reach up and grasp her wrists, pulling her grip free from my shirt, and pin them above her head.
“Because it hurts or because you don’t want to admit you fell for lies?
You never loved me, Lily. You loved how helping me made you feel.
Poor, broken Ronan, burning up with fever in that factory.
” I allow myself to smirk. “Bet you felt like the hero that day, didn’t you?
Finding me, and feeding me like I was a stray dog you could tame. ”
“Ronan, please …” Her voice breaks. “You know that’s not how it was.”
“I don’t know shit. I just knew what you wanted me to be. All I needed to do was feed into your little fantasy.”
She struggles against my grip, but I don’t let her go. I can’t. Her skin is soft and warm beneath my fingers, the pulse in her wrist fluttering like a caged bird.
“You were more than that.” Her tears are falling freely now, but her voice holds strong. “You were everything. And you know it. You’re just scared. Still so fucking scared of letting anyone … of letting me—”
I kiss her.
It’s meant to shut her up. To prove her wrong, and show her I’m exactly the bastard I claim to be. But the second my mouth meets hers, all those years between us collapse into nothing.
She tastes like tears and memories, of despair and hope.
Her voice from the past whispers my name loud inside my head.
Memories of every night I spent in my cell, trying not to think about how she felt, how she sounded under my hands, flood my brain until I can’t think about anything but the way she’s pressed against me right now.
My grip on her wrist tightens—in punishment or prayer, I don’t know anymore.
She makes a sound, broken and wanting, and I swallow it. Make it mine. Make it hurt. And kiss her harder. Seven years I’ve lived without this. Without her. And every second of that time is crashing through me with enough force to shatter bone.
Her hands twist in my grip, and when I don’t release her, she bites my lower lip, hard enough to sting, yet soft enough to remind me how she used to beg for more.
I let her go.
Her hands are in my hair before I can retreat. Her nails scrape against my scalp, fingers fisting hard enough to hurt. She drags my mouth back down to hers, kissing me like she’s trying to crawl inside my skin and find the boy she thought she knew beneath all the ink and scar tissue.
My hand finds her throat and curls around it, planning to force her away from me, but her pulse hammers against my palm, proof that she’s as wrecked by this as I am. Her heartbeat is rabbit-fast, and when I press my thumb just beneath her jaw, she makes a sound that shoots straight to my dick.
I’m drowning.
Burning.
Breaking apart.
My other hand slides into her hair, angling her head back. The kiss turns slower. I trace her bottom lip with my tongue, then dip inside to slide it against hers.
Warning bells are screaming now, but they’re distant, muffled by the way she tastes, the way she fits against me, the way my name sounds when she breathes it against my mouth.
Ronan.
My hand curves over her cheek, thumb swiping away tears I put there. My lips soften against hers, and for one perfect second, I let myself believe this could be real and I could be the man she deserves instead of the wreckage I am.
Then reality crashes back.
I break away. Push back hard enough that she stumbles.
“Go home, Lily.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “Find someone new to save, who will believe in the pretty little lies you tell yourself.”
She reaches out, and her fingertips brush against my jaw. The touch burns through my skin.
“Ronan—”
“Get out.”
For a moment, she stares at me, lips parted, eyes still bright with tears. Then her expression hardens.
“Fine. If that’s what you want. You can pretend what we had wasn’t real, but we both know the truth.
” She straightens, pushes past me and walks toward the steps.
Her voice is devoid of any emotion when she next speaks.
“I hope one day you’ll stop punishing yourself for surviving. Good luck with the house restoration.”
I close the door on her, and watch through the window as she walks away. Each step sends a sharp pain through my chest. When she reaches her car, she looks back one last time. I hold my breath … and release it in an explosive rush when she doesn’t come back, just opens the car door and gets inside.
I stay perfectly still until her taillights disappear, and the night swallows any trace of her. When I’m certain she’s not coming back, I spin and bury my fist into the wall. The pain stops me from going after her and letting her see how much I’m still fucking drowning.
My legs give out and I slide down the wall, pressing my palms against my eyes until stars burst behind them.
Seven fucking years, and she still sees right through me. She still makes me want things I have no right to even fucking think about.
Some breaks can’t be fixed, and some walls need to remain standing. And some ghosts deserve to stay alone, even when being alone feels like dying.