29 #2
Pain crossed her face, but anger followed it this time. “You don’t have to turn everything I say into a weapon.”
“You make it too easy.”
“No, Ryan. I hurt you. I didn’t teach you how to be cruel.”
“I mastered cruel long before you fucked me up.”
“I know that too.”
A bitter laugh left me. “You know everything tonight.”
“I know enough to recognize that you’re trying to make me hate you.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether you hate me.”
“Then why did you look for me?”
My attention snapped toward hers. Charm’s chin lifted.
“I saw you.”
“You sound hopeful.”
“I saw you look toward Bliss and Aura after every goal.”
“They’re my friends.”
“You looked beside them.”
I threw the broom against the pantry wall. It hit hard enough to make her flinch before clattering onto the floor.
“Fine. I looked for you.”
Her breath caught.
“I looked after the first goal. I looked after the second. I looked after the third like some pathetic asshole who thought maybe you would appear if I wanted it badly enough. When the horn sounded, I wished like fuck that everything was different.” I leaned closer, the words full of seething rage. “Are you happy now?”
She flinched. “No.”
“You wanted the truth.”
“I wanted to know if any part of you still needed me there.”
“I wanted you there even knowing the cost of needing you.”
Her tears spilled over. I pointed toward the door.
“Take that shit to the other cabin.”
“I’m not using my tears against you.”
“They’re working anyway.”
“Why? Do they make you feel guilty?”
“Fuck, Charm.” I paced away before turning back toward her. “This is why I feel guilty. You cry, and everything in me still wants to fix it. I don’t want to fix you right now. I don’t want to hold you or tell you it’ll be okay when I know nothing will ever be okay again.”
“I’m not asking you to fix me.”
“I can’t fucking fix you.”
“I’ve been asking you to listen.”
“I listened.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I answered when I took my key off your ring.”
Her face crumpled before rage straightened it again. “You answered by making sure I understood how easily you could erase me.”
“Nothing about this was easy.”
“You made it look easy.”
“Good.”
Charm stared at me as though I’d slapped her. “Good?”
“I wanted you to believe me.”
“You wanted to punish me.”
“I wanted you gone.”
“You wanted me hurt.”
“Yeah!” The admission tore out before I could decide whether to give it to her. “I wanted you to hurt. I wanted you to feel one fucking piece of what you did to me because I knew you would turn my pain into something you could bargain with if I let you see it.”
“I never bargained with your pain.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“I don’t want your apology!”
“It’s all I have!”
“Then keep it!”
“No!” Her voice exploded through the lodge, startling both of us. “You don’t get to demand every ugly truth from me and then refuse to hear anything that doesn’t support the version of me you need to hate.”
“You think I need help hating you?”
“I think you need to hate me so you can keep walking away.”
“I’m walking away because I don’t trust you.”
“You’re walking away because I disappointed you, and Ryan Decker makes it impossible for anyone to survive disappointing him.”
The anger inside me became so complete that everything else fell away.
“You think I make it hard for people to disappoint me?”
“I think you make one failure permanent.”
“Yeah, because I have enough disappointments to fill a fucking lifetime!” I shouted.
“My father died from an overdose. My mother walked into a store and never came home. Every family after that promised I could stay until they found a reason I couldn’t.
Every person who took me in taught me exactly how temporary love becomes once it gets inconvenient.
Forgive me if I learned how to shut the pinche door before someone gets another chance to throw me through it. ”
“I am not them.”
“You fucking proved that?”
“I made one horrible choice.”
“You made it when I needed you most. To me, that is the same fucking thing.”
“And you have punished me every day since!”
“I left you alone.”
“You kissed me!”
“You came into my lodge.”
“Briggs told me I could get my bag!”
“I told him to keep you away from me.”
“He was trying to stop me from freezing outside while you were too busy hating me to care!”
“I cared!” I slammed my palm against the counter. “That was the fucking problem. I cared that you were cold. I cared that you hadn’t eaten. I cared that you were crying, and I hated every one of you for putting me in a room where I had to care about you after what you did.”
“So you kissed me to make me pay for it.”
“Yes.”
Her face went still. The honesty wounded her more deeply than another insult could have, and I didn’t take it back.
“You knew what that kiss would do to me,” she said.
“I wanted you choking on regret for ruining me.”
“You wanted me to believe you still loved me long enough to rip it back.”
“Oh, I still love you.” I looked at her with all the disgust I felt for both of us. “I hate you more.”
“Then you’re worse than I thought.”
“Good. Hold on to that.”
“You keep saying that like you want to make sure there’s nothing left for me to fight for.”
“There isn’t.”
“Bullshit.”
I laughed, and her anger sharpened.
“You chose Milwaukee because there are no memories of me there. You looked for me in the stands. You’re standing here in the suit you signed your future in, screaming that you love me while insisting there’s nothing left.
” She stepped around the pieces of glass we’d missed, closing the space between us.
“That doesn’t sound like nothing, Ryan. It sounds like you’re so fucking afraid of being hurt twice that you would rather destroy us yourself. ”
“There is no us.” I grabbed the mezcal and poured a shot.
“There is, and you hate that you can’t kill it.”
“I’m doing a pretty good job.” I slammed the shot and placed the glass on the counter.
“No, you’re hiding it.”
“From who?”
“Me, everyone, and maybe yourself.” Her hands struck my chest. “You made sure I saw what leaving looked like. You ripped the key from my ring. You locked the door before I reached the stairs. You left the group chat, went to Flint, and made everyone understand how finished you were. You turned it into a performance so nobody could question you without looking like they were betraying you.”
My hand closed around her wrist. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know I hurt you.”
“You don’t know shit!” I released her and slammed my hand against my chest. “You have no fucking clue what this did to me because I made damn sure it couldn’t reach you.
You put your pain on display so I would see it.
Every time Briggs’s phone went off, there you were.
Every update about you crying, not sleeping, not eating, and falling apart reached me.
Bliss and Aura made sure everyone knew, and everyone made sure I knew.
I couldn’t escape what losing me did to you even after I left the group chat so I wouldn’t have to see your name. ”
I struck my chest again, harder.
“But me? You got fucking silence. You never heard when I broke. You never saw what it took to keep walking away from you because even after you gutted me, I protected you from what you did. Trust me, Charm, I saved you. If I’d let you see what losing you did to me, you wouldn’t be standing here asking me for another chance. You’d know you had no fucking right.”
Her anger faltered. “Ryan—”
“No. You wanted the truth, so take it. You know I left. You know I took my key, shut the door on you, and ended any fucking chance of us happening again. You know I stopped answering because that is the part I let you see. You don’t know what it cost me to stay gone.”
“I know you fought Briggs.”
“You heard that I fought Briggs. You don’t know why.”
“He followed you to Flint.”
“He followed me because my boys knew exactly what trusting you cost me, and not one of them tried to talk me into taking you back.”
“I never asked them to.”
“You asked them to carry your messages.”
“Because you wouldn’t answer me!”
“I am done!”
“You aren’t done. You’re hurt.”
“Stop telling me what I am!”
“You’re hurt, and you turned that pain into a decision nobody was allowed to question.”
“I begged them to understand that I meant it.”
“Why did you have to beg if you were so sure?”
The question landed too close to something I refused to show her. I closed the distance until she had to tip her face back to look at me.
“Because they love you. Because they knew how much I loved you, and every one of them was waiting for the moment I broke and went back. I needed them to understand that loving you stopped being safe for me.”
“So you needed them to hold you to it.”
“I needed my family.”
“You needed protection from me.”
“Yes.”
The answer tore across her face.
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to hear that?” she demanded.
“Do you have any idea what it took for me to say it?”
“I am not dangerous to you.”
“You know exactly where to cut me.”
“You told me where!”
“Because I trusted you!”
“And you told me I was safe giving you every broken part of myself too!” she screamed.
“You stood in your apartment and made me believe I could be imperfect with you. You told me I was trained, that being afraid didn’t make me weak, and that you would keep opening the cage until I could walk through it.
Then I failed once, Ryan. Once. You became another person who decided I only deserved love while I behaved correctly. ”
“Don’t you fucking compare me to them.”
“Why? Because your conditions are louder?”
“My condition was that you stopped hiding what I meant to you.”
“And I failed!”
“Then live with what it cost.”
“I am trying!”
“No, you’re trying to make me absorb the cost for you.”
“I am telling you that I need professional help finding my way out of this, and I want one goddamn reason to believe there might still be something waiting when I do.”
I laughed, and the sound was ugly enough to flush her face with fury.
“You want hope from me.”
“I want honesty.”