Chapter 63
THEN: Junior Year, December
Paloma
It’s early December. I can’t decide who has been avoiding who, but when I catch him on the balcony by the dimming fire, it’s late and he’s drunk.
At first, I’m sure he’ll see me and turn the other way. That I’ve finally snuffed out the light that’s always burned for me inside of Bennett Reiner.
That’s what you want, right?
But he doesn’t. He just stares for a long moment, before finishing his cup of whatever alcoholic drink he’s been indulging in.
“Bennett,” I say, biting my lip. I’ve had zero sips of alcohol. “Listen—”
“Rhys isn’t here.” He slurs the words. My stomach cramps, hand raising to my heart like I can rub the sting away.
“I need to talk to you—”
“I’m not surprised.” He laughs, but there’s only pain in it. “That you like him. Rhys is—”
“Stop it,” I whisper, stepping closer to him. “I didn’t know. And . . . once I did it was over.”
I’d barely made it to the car the night of our cursed double date before telling Rhys I needed to go. I texted him that I was done quickly after. It was callous and rude for a boy that had only been kind to me, but I’d never meant to hurt anyone.
Even if it seems like that’s the only thing I’m good at.
Bennett nods, but his face still bleeds pain. “I slept with someone else,” he says, bitter and angry. I nod.
“I know.”
“Just the same as you,” he sneers. He’s drunk and hurting. I can feel the turmoil, the knowledge that a part of him wants me to hurt, too, but he’s still Bennett. Kind even when he shouldn’t be. Good, right down to his soul.
“You’re not,” I say. “You’re so much better than me.”
We stand in charged silence for a long while.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” His words are a wrangled sob, blubbery as he wipes at his eyes. “But I don’t know how to be without you. I’ve tried. But . . . Goddamn it, Paloma, loving you hurts.”
I know. I want to cry. I know. I’m sorry.
I should let him go. I should use this moment, here and now, to release him from the pain we both feel. That’s what a good person would do.
Instead, I drive him home—and then to my door when he begs me not to leave him there. I tuck him into my too-small bed as he grasps me tight around the middle.
“I know you’re asleep,” I whisper. He doesn’t stir.
“And you probably won’t remember this in the morning.
But . . . when I was fourteen, a man told me he would take care of me.
I just had to give him . . . something I didn’t want to give.
And I was too scared of everything to stop it, even if I wanted it to stop.
And then, when I met you? I was so ashamed of who I’d been before. ”
I lean in and kiss his forehead, watching his lips kick like he can feel me in his sleep.
“I love you. I’ll always love you, Bennett. I just wish I was someone else, better and more deserving of your kind of love.”
I sleep in my car that night, so that I don’t have to watch him leave in the morning.