Chapter 36 #2
Regret courses through me as I think about that day three months ago.
Walking away from him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Even as I did it, I knew it was the wrong move.
I knew it would end up being the greatest betrayal he’s ever felt, and from the person he thought it’d never come from.
One that cut deepest, because out of the few things we always knew we could count on in life, each other was always number one.
No matter when or where, we had each other, and that was all we’d ever need.
But when it was time to prove it? To put up or shut up? To stand together as a team, us against the world?
I blew it.
Tossed it in the air like a hand grenade with a lit fuse and bolted from the line of fire. Knowing that is punishment enough to last a lifetime, especially if it causes damage to us that’s too deep to repair.
There’s only one way to find out.
“Don’t you dare?” I whisper the three words that started this entire mess over two years ago.
A knot the size of a baseball lodges itself in my throat as I look at him, at the face I’ve known for my entire life, only recently realizing it’s the face of my future, no matter how unplanned it might’ve been.
Brown eyes sink closed, a pained expression creasing his forehead. “Pen…”
Fuck.
I can tell he’s about to say no. Maybe make some kind of excuse not to answer at all. But even though I have no right to ask for a definitive answer, I need one. I need to know if we can ever go back to where we used to be. Or become something even better.
“Kee, you heard me. Yes or no?” I ask, imploring him to give it to me straight, yet terrified the answer might actually be no.
His throat works to swallow and he shakes his head, sorrow etched into his features. My stomach sinks at the sight before he even had the chance to get the words out.
“No, Pen. I can’t anymore.” He worries his bottom lip between his teeth the way he always does when he’s trying to keep his words to himself. I don’t have it in me to ask for them. They don’t belong to me anymore.
I must be a goddamn masochist though, because I can’t let it go.
I can’t let him go. Not without giving it everything I can.
Because at least if this is truly done and over, I can say I did everything in my power to make this right between us.
At least I’d have the chance to speak the truth I’ve been too afraid to admit to not just Keene, but to myself.
You’re the unexpected inevitable.
The truth in those words is why I dig the knife in deeper, finding myself begging for him to kill me with yet another rejection. “Please, Kee. I’ll do anything.”
His jaw ticks and he shakes his head again. Another no.
And with it, another piece of my composure cracks.
It feels like my heart is fracturing within my chest. Fingers find themselves wrapped around his forearm this time, the contact spreading warmth through my entire body where his skin ignites beneath my palm.
Soft and warm and home and Keene.
“Please, baby.” My voice is barely a whisper over the pouring rain. “I have no right to ask for this from you. But please. Just one more time.”
“You don’t deserve it.”
“I know I don’t.”
“You’re lucky I’m even entertaining this right now.”
I nod sadly. “I know.”
He scoffs out a laugh. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think you do, Pen.
Sometimes I swear you don’t remember that you weren’t the only one outed in front of thousands of people that day.
I was too.” A grimace mars his face as he shakes his head, eyes full of so many emotions, I can’t possibly place them all.
“And you wanna know what was worse than having that image flash up on the scoreboard without my knowledge? Watching you walk away from me like I meant nothing to you.”
Another crack forms within me. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Keene nods, his lips rolling into a thin line as he looks me over. His gaze moves over me like he’s seeing me for the first time. Like he has no clue who I am anymore, and the thought alone is enough to make my heart feel like it’s being torn from my chest.
“I forgive you,” he finally says, after the world’s most unbearable silence. “There’s no use in harboring anger or resentment toward you for something we can’t change.”
I swallow. “Why do I hear a but at the end of that sentence?”
“Because…” He lets out a sigh and rubs his forehead. “Because I can forgive you, but I can’t just forget it happened. You hurt me, Pen. And I didn’t just lose the guy I was sleeping with that day in the parking lot when you walked away from me. I also lost my best friend.”
“That wasn’t my intention. That’s why I’m here, asking this of you. Begging you. Daring you to show me what an idiot I was for ever walking away. Nothing is more important than you, fucking nothing.”
He smiles sadly. “Your pride. Your fears. Those were more important.”
“Not anymore.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
My eyes sink closed, a cool wind whipping over my exposed skin and making me shiver.
“I dare you to let me show you we can go back to how it was before.”
A look of surprise crosses his face before flickering into something like irritation. “Before we had sex? Before everyone found out? Before—”
“Before I was stupid enough to give up the only person who’s ever meant anything to me. I’m done running from this or fighting it. There’s no use anyway.” My heart catches in my throat. “It was always gonna be you and me in the end.”
When I expect his gaze to soften, it only hardens.
“There was a time I thought that too.”
No, no, no. I’m losing him.
“Then I dare you to do what I couldn’t. What you wanted all along.” I step closer, slide my hand down to weave my fingers through his. “Stay. Fight for this. For us. For what we had and what we both know we can be.”
He looks down at our entwined fingers, his jaw pulsing as he works to keep his emotions in check. Ones floating right under the surface when he meets my gaze again.
“There are just some things people can’t come back from. Wounds that’ll never fully heal. You broke me, Aspen. Ripped my fucking heart out of my chest where I stood. So I can’t just wait here forever, holding on to the hope you’ll figure it out and change. That’s literally insane.”
“Kee.” My free hand moves to cup the side of his face as I whisper his name. The anxiety and anger rippling through him is palpable, and it kills me, knowing I’m the reason behind it. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt him. The one thing I swore I’d never do.
He leans into my touch for the briefest second, eyes sinking closed.
“Let me go, Pen. Please, just let me go.”
I can’t.
No matter how much he wants me to, no matter how many times he begs for it. I know I can’t let him go. Not now, when I know what it’s like to live without the other half of me.
But I just might have to learn how. Indefinitely.
Goddamnit.
This isn’t the way I wanted to do this, but I’m out of options.
And if I know anything at all—if I’ve learned anything in the past few months without him—it’s that I’ll regret not putting everything I have on the line right now, while I still have the chance.
Which includes my heart.
Letting my hand slide around to the back of his neck, I tamp down the emotions threatening to break free. I push the fear away and put everything I have—heart and soul—on the line the way I would never dare with anyone before him.
For anyone but him.
“I dare you to let me love you the way you deserve to be loved. Wholly. Completely. And out in the open, where the world can see.” My throat constricts around the words, but I continue to push them out anyway. “I love you. I’m so stupidly in love with you. And I dare you to love me too.”
While he’s done his best to keep it together thus far, it’s three little words, eight letters too late, that cause a tear to slip free. It hits my palm, and I wipe it away with my thumb like that’s all it takes to make it so it never existed.
“I already did, Pen,” he whispers, voice mangled and raw. “But it wasn’t enough to make you stay.”
My forehead settles against his, both hands cupping his face now as regret fills the sliver of space between us.
“It was enough to bring me back to you. I’ll always come back to you, baby. Because you and me? This is it. The real deal. Just let me show you.”
I crowd into him closer, erasing any and all distance between us as I back him into the wall. Our wet clothes plaster us to each other, and the heat of his body radiating through them is the only thing keeping me warm anymore.
“You’ve seen me push people away, time and time again.
Never letting them see me for who I really am because I was too afraid of giving them that kind of power.
To know what makes me tick or how to hurt me, so I put on the armor.
” My thumb brushes his lips, my attention locked on them as I speak.
“But you’ve always known where the cracks were.
Just like you’ve always known how to protect them.
Fill them with pieces of yourself. And when you did?
You made it impossible to live without you. ”
The ache in my chest eases with every word pouring from my mouth, so I let them go. Give him every vulnerable part of myself that’s always been his to begin with.
“You’re the thing I can’t live without, and I’ll wait for, fight for, and chase you to the ends of the fucking Earth to prove it to you.
So please, just tell me you’ll give me another chance.
Please tell me I haven’t fucked up enough to lose the one person on this planet that was made for me, and me alone, to love. ”
His fingers dig into my drenched shirt, grasping onto the fabric for dear life as the most agonized expression crosses his face. Never before have I seen someone this torn; completely shredded between their head and heart.
I know which finally wins when his grip loosens, and he pushes me away. His head shakes as he steps toward the door, but the image quickly blurs out of focus from the tears pooling in my eyes.
“I can’t,” he says, his voice grated as he glances away from me. “At least, not right now.”
My jaw ticks, and I clear my throat.
Fuck. Is this what it felt like for him three months ago? When I said no? When I walked away?
If it was even a fraction of the pain coursing through my entire being, I don’t blame him for saying he can’t or won’t let me back in.
Because this pain? It’s fucking unbearable.
It feels like an anvil was dropped on my chest, and I’m struggling to breathe.
Yet breathing is the only thing I can do to survive.
“Okay,” I manage, clearing my throat again. “If that’s what you want. I understand.”
“It’s not a no, Pen. I just need time,” he whispers. “Please, just give me some time. Some space.”
Those are the last two things I want to give him right now, when we’re no closer to fixing this than we were the day I left. They feel like the most deadly combination in the world, extending the chasm of space already between us.
But if this is what he wants—what he needs—I’ll give it to him.
I’ll do whatever it takes.