21. All Lost Words （Hattie） #2
“It’s cute that you think that,” I spit.
His eyes flash with surprise.
But my anger, my hurt are unleashed.
Until now, I’d pushed them down because I figured Ethan needed some kind of calm, some time to regain his senses, but this is too far.
“Are you being serious? How much did you drink before you came home on the plane?” I search his eyes.
They glitter with irritation, too many blue fires to count.
“You sure you want to pick a fight right now?”
“Why not? Why the hell not , Ethan? If you’re going to end things on a whim because you’re mad at your grandpa and you won’t tell me why?”
“Don’t.” Jaw tight, nostrils flared, he narrows his eyes. “Don’t go there.”
“I have to.” I’m so mad I’m not hearing the words leaving my mouth.
My biggest fears are coming true. That’s all I know.
Everything I stressed about.
Everything I tried to believe was irrational, coming out to play.
“I don’t know what happened to you,” I tell him, “but what gives you the right to take it out on me?”
“I warned you. I told you to leave several times.”
“And Margot warned me about you. She said you back out the second things get real. And maybe I’m projecting, but that doesn’t give you the right to crumple me up and throw me away like a dirty tissue.”
“This conversation is over.” He shakes his head, striding to the door.
“No, it’s not. Ethan!” I hop down and chase after him. “You know what you could have done tonight? You could have been an adult and talked to me.”
Ethan throws open a side door that leads out to the path winding down to the rainy beach.
Pine trees ripple, bending in the wind.
The rain savages on the paved walkway with punishing impacts.
And he just keeps walking into the mess.
Away from me.
Away from us .
Away from giving me a flipping explanation.
“It doesn’t have to be like this!” I yell after him—scream, really, forcing the words out so harshly they scrape my throat raw.
And I can feel the panic hardening.
This was always the ending I feared.
Ethan, flippantly walking away after grinding me into the dust.
“You can be better than this, you big idiot! You don’t have to be an emotionally stunted caveman who shuts down and runs from his problems. If I was actually good enough for you, you’d know that. You’d know !”
The words hang in the air, suspended in the rain.
But I don’t even know if he can hear me.
Then another lightning bolt splits the night and thunder interrupts us.
I gasp when I see him turning around and striding back, his face furious and too close. Water drips from his hair, jet-black and shadowed, and his eyes gleam like volcanic stone.
I want to choke on my words, claw them back.
Instead, they’re out in the open, and I know he heard them.
The rain soaks my hair as I wait helplessly, miserably cold for the summer.
Our wedding was supposed to be a few weeks away.
A stupid thing now, but it’s in my head and I can’t get it out.
This beautiful, complex, infuriating man won’t ever fake marry me.
Not when he’s determined to destroy himself.
“I am not fucking running ,” he snaps. “Not anymore. That’s the entire point.”
“Then why are we standing in the rain?”
“Because it’s storming and I need you to go inside and you won’t.”
“How is that not—” I start, but he cuts me off, slashing one hand in front of my face.
“For the first time in my life, I’m living on my terms. Not someone else’s.” His face almost looks like it softens as he looks down at me, though it must be a trick of the light, because there’s nothing soft about him right now.
There’ll be nothing soft again.
“You won’t understand it. Not now. Not tonight. But someday, you’ll know I did this for your own good,” he says.
I want to laugh in his face—or just slap him.
My own good? He thinks any of this is for my own good?
It’s the weakest excuse in the book.
He might think he’s alive, but he’s acting possessed. His demons have taken over.
And he’s reaching deep, finding excuses to run away from me.
I look up at Ethan Blackthorn for what might be the last time.
Strong jaw, bold lips, a hint of dusky stubble, eyes that I know are blue even though they’re nothing but shadows.
He’s more forbidden and unreachable than ever.
Water runs down his temples in rivulets, and the longer I stare, the more his mouth presses together into a hard, bloodless line.
“This isn’t for my good. None of it,” I say softly. The storm eats my words, but I know he hears me.
“I said you wouldn’t understand,” he says. “I’m not standing here all night, trying to pound it through your head.”
What bullshit.
My heart disintegrates.
“But I’m fighting my battle my way,” he says. “And I sure as hell don’t need you in the crossfire.”
That’s it.
He doesn’t say another word as he turns and walks down the winding path to the beach, into the weakening rain.
And I don’t know if he’ll come back tonight.
I wonder if he’ll stay there until I’ve cleared out my stuff and left.
Whatever we had, it’s over as fast as the lightning.
Gone like it never existed.
My tears melt into the rain as they roll down my face.