Chapter Twenty-Three Love, Love Me Don’t
Is he seriously growling at me right now? “I’m pretty sure I should be asking you that question,” I shoot back as I finally make it out of the cellar.
Instead of answering me, he busies himself closing the doors behind me. “You need to go back to school.”
“We need to go back to school,” I correct. “What are you even doing out here, anyway? And why is Jean-Luc out here?”
“Jean-Luc’s here? Where?” He looks around like he thinks the fae is going to materialize out of thin air.
“I have no idea. I thought I saw him go into the root cellar, but by the time I caught up, he was gone.” I eye him suspiciously. “Are you going to try to tell me that you know nothing about this?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he says, “Go back to the dorm, Clementine,” and turns away, as if to underscore that he’s done with me. Like his use of my real name isn’t enough to make that clear.
And that’s all it takes for something to snap inside of me. I don’t know if it’s the blatant dismissal or the way he thinks he can order me around or the fact that he is once again walking away from me. But whatever it is, something just breaks inside of me, and I end up snarling, “You don’t really think that’s how this is going to play out, do you, Bungalow Bill?”
He pauses for a second at my reference to the classic Beatles song—and the ever-changing nicknames we used to give each other as kids. He used to call me different citrus fruits, popular and obscure, instead of Clementine. And since he shares a name with one of the most famous Beatles songs of all time, I called him by all the others instead.
I know he remembers—he’s already slipped once today and called me Kumquat—and I think maybe this is it. Maybe, here in the pouring rain, is where we finally have it out.
But then he just keeps walking, and it pisses me off. I follow behind him and grab his arm, trying to spin him around. When that doesn’t work, I scramble to get in front of him and block his path.
He looks at me with eyes that have gone completely blank. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” I answer, wiping my hands over my face in a futile effort to sluice the water away. “You haven’t talked to me for three years—three years, Jude—and then, today, you finally break that silence and—”
“I didn’t have a choice. We were in a group together.”
I’m expecting the words—hell, I know the truth of them very well—but that doesn’t keep them from hurting as they hit. All the pain and anger from earlier combines with the pain and anger I’ve been nursing since freshman year, and I end up hurling a whole bunch of my own words at him. Words that at any other time, in any other place, would never have left my mouth.
“That’s seriously all you’ve got to say to me?” I demand. “After cutting me off completely, after ignoring every message I sent, after pretending Carolina didn’t just disappear from our lives, ‘we were in a group’ is the best you’ve got?”
His jaw works, his too-full lips pressing together as he stares down at me through the pounding rain.
Long, storm-drenched seconds pass, and I know he’s waiting for me to look away, waiting for me to just give up. That’s what the old Clementine would have done, the one he knew—and ditched.
But I’ve grown since then. I’ve gone through a lot. And I’ve waited too long for this moment just to let the matter drop—especially when I know him well enough to know that if I walk away now, I’ll never get the answers I’m looking for.
So instead of backing away—backing down—I hold my ground. I keep my gaze locked with his until, finally, finally, he replies, “It’s the truth.”
“It’s a cop-out, and you know it,” I toss back as anger jets through me. “Just like you know I’m not asking why you finally talked to me today. I’m asking why you haven’t talked to me in three years. I’m asking why you kissed me, why you made me think you cared about me and then discarded me like I was garbage. Worse than garbage—at least you give trash a second thought when you pick it up to throw it away. I didn’t even warrant that much attention from you.”
“You think it was easy for me?” he whispers, and somehow, I hear his words even over the storm. But maybe that’s just because they’re echoing inside me, scraping against my skin and hollowing me out like a pumpkin waiting to be carved up.
“You really believe that walking away from you wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done?” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, there’s something in their depths that looks an awful lot like pain. “You were my best friend.”
“But you did walk away! And you’ve got other best friends now, so no harm, no foul, right?” I take an unsteady breath, for once grateful for the rain because he can’t see the tears burning in my eyes. “But it’s all okay, I guess, because so do I.”
He looks away, and I watch his throat work for several seconds before he turns back and says, “I know it’s hard without Carolina.”
“You know it’s hard?” I squeak out, shock practically stopping my heart as I stare at him wide and wild-eyed. “You know it’s hard? That’s what you’ve got to say to me right now?”
Jude lets out a frustrated roar, one that any other time would have chills careening down my spine. Right now, though, it just pisses me off even more. As does his demand of, “What do you want from me, Clementine? What the ever-loving fuck do you want from me?”
“The same thing I’ve wanted from you since freshman year!” I shout back at him. “The truth. Why’d you have to go and change everything? We were fine as friends—better than fine. So why did you have to kiss me? Why’d you have to make me feel something good for the first time in my life just to tear it away? Was I that bad of a kisser? Or did you regret it? Did you just figure out that you didn’t like me like that and, instead of telling me, you took the easy way out and ghosted me? What was it, Jude?”
I’m breathing heavily by the time I’m done hurling questions—and accusations—at him. There’s a part of me that’s horrified—that can’t believe I actually said all of those things that have run through my head countless times in the last few years. But there’s another part of me, a bigger part, that feels liberated for finally having my worries out in the open.
Is it embarrassing? Yes. But is a little embarrassment worth finally having my questions answered? You’re damn straight it is.
At least until Jude looks me straight in the eye and says, “We go to the same school. It’s impossible for me to ghost you.”
It’s my turn to roar with frustration, though mine comes out sounding more like a scream.
“Again, that’s what you focus on? The mundane details instead of the question I’m all but begging you to answer?”
“Clementine—”
“Don’t you dare Clementine me,” I grit out. “Not when you’re so pathetic that you can’t even answer a simple question. Or maybe it’s not that you’re pathetic. Maybe it’s just that you’re an asshole.”
I’ve laid myself bare. Furious, and more hurt than I want to admit, I turn away. Fuck it. Just fuck it. And fuck him. He’s not worth—
Jude stops me with a hand on my elbow. One gentle tug and he’s whirling me back around to face him. “You were an amazing kisser!” he yells into my face. “Your lips tasted like pineapple. I wanted to hold you forever. And I never wanted anything more in my life than to know that you were mine.”
I stare at him, shocked, as his words hang in the air between us. Even the storm dies down for his confession, the wind calming and the rain drying up between one breath and the next so that the two of us are left, staring at each other with nothing but a few scant inches of air between his mouth and mine.
“So why?” I whisper when I can finally get the words out. “Why did you walk away? Why did you cut me out of your life so completely? So cruelly?”
“Because—” he answers, his voice breaking a little on the last syllable.
“Because,” I echo, breath held and heart beating like a riot inside my chest as I wait for him to be able to speak.
“Because I’m not good for you.” He swallows convulsively. “If we were together, I’d be your worst nightmare.”