Chapter 41 #2
His brows quirk up, and there’s a whole war being fought behind his expression that I don’t quite understand. Finally, his eyes lock with mine. “You’re wrong,” he says quietly. “But I never bothered to correct you.”
“I’m not wrong, Will. I remember everything.”
He gives several small nods of his head, convincing himself of something. “I’ll probably regret this,” he says, his voice rougher now, “but if you really want to have this conversation, let’s have it.”
“What conversation?”
He pushes off the counter and takes a step closer. “Tell me a time I bullied you.” He pauses, studying me with a challenge in his eyes. “And I’ll prove to you it wasn’t what you think.”
My head bobs back with shock. “You’re serious?”
He just watches me. Doesn’t smile or tease. Just waits.
“Well, let’s see. There are so many to choose from.
” I tap my fingers on the island rhythmically, searching my brain for the many memories when Will left me crying, fuming, or both.
“How about most of our childhood? Let’s start there.
When I wanted to play with you guys? You, Cory, Ridge and Kyle, Devon and Tyler.
You were the only kids who lived nearby, and you and Cory always walked to the park to meet them without me.
Even when Cory tried to include me, you said no.
I know we were kids, but that’s where it all started.
We were, what? Six? And you couldn’t let me feel included a single time.
You always left me at home with our moms.”
He tilts his head to the side, eyes tracking across my face. My skin feels too tight under his scrutiny. “They were going to make fun of you. Do you remember the day I stopped letting you come? Because there were days that you did come. What changed?”
I sift through my memories. He’s right. There are memories of being at the park with the boys, but not many.
“You wanted to play pirates with us,” Will says.
He shifts closer. Barely, but I feel it.
He looks as if he regrets the words before they’ve even left his mouth.
“So, they made you a map and told you they were going to hide treasure. And then they abandoned you, Opal. They left you alone and ran off.” He swallows, looking away.
His jaw tightens before he forces himself to look back at me.
“After that, I stopped letting you come because I was scared of what they’d do.
They didn’t want you around, they just wanted you for entertainment. ”
His words slam into my chest. Is that possibly true? I picture a younger me, diligently searching for treasure in the woods. And Will, nearby, yelling at me to go home.
I try to pry that memory from my head—were the other boys around? I don’t think so. I remember crying. I remember him looking angrier than I’d ever seen him.
He was trying to…protect me?
But there were other times. That was just the beginning.
“And the science fair in, what, fourth grade? What about that? You knocked over my project in front of everyone. I’d worked for weeks on that volcano, and you ruined it.”
I can still feel the heat of embarrassment crawling up my neck. The way everyone stared. The way he wouldn’t look at me afterward.
His response is quicker this time. He’s been waiting for this one.
“Yeah, I knew how hard you’d worked. And then I saw Trevor Hucks put something in it when you stepped away from your table.
It wasn’t going to work, and that would’ve killed you.
” His mouth presses into a thin line. “I knocked over your volcano because it gave you the chance to fix it over the weekend and resubmit it. You still won.”
I suck in a sharp breath. He’s closer now than he was a minute ago, though I don’t remember him moving.
He’s right. I did win, but that never quite took the sting of his betrayal away. I thought my winning was in spite of him, but was it really because of him all along?
All this time, I thought…
I only saw a villain. My villain. But was he something else entirely?
My next words come slower. “What about the bus? Cory used to sit with me, until you made him stop.”
“Because they were teasing him about you. Spreading rumors about what was happening between the two of you in that bus seat.” His jaw goes sharp. “Cory wasn’t starting them, but he didn’t stop them either. I wasn’t going to let them talk about you like that, especially when I knew it wasn’t true.”
Especially when I knew it wasn’t true.
Because he asked? Because he cared? Those words hit differently now.
I chew my bottom lip, heart pounding. He notices. His eyes drop there for half a second before lifting again.
“When we were fourteen, at Kayla Jenkins’s pool party, I had a crush on Isaac Barclay, and you embarrassed me in front of him. He was talking to me, flirting with me, and you told him there were ‘hotter girls.’ You said I was basically a ‘plain little sister.’”
He winces, but only with his mouth. His eyes don’t leave mine.
“Isaac and the other guys made a bet about who they could hook up with. He knew you had a crush on him and said it would be easy to get you to…” It’s the first time his gaze falters.
His hand flexes at his side. “I told him to challenge himself instead. I’m sorry you overheard the rest of it, but you have to know…
” He pushes out a weighted breath, and his next words sound like a confession.
“I’ve never looked at you like a little sister, Opal. ”
The way he says my name makes my pulse skip.
I ignore him, barreling on. I’m not ready for my world to be so completely turned on its head. Not yet.
“You told me the audition time for the school play had been changed, and I missed it.”
He takes a small step forward and rests his hands on his side of the island.
The shrinking space between us is starting to feel intentional and suffocating.
“Mrs. Boaz had already chosen her Juliet. I overheard her telling Abby after Spanish the part was hers.” His voice is gentle.
“I knew how much you wanted it, and I didn’t want you to be embarrassed. So I let you think it was my fault.”
Something in his eyes says my embarrassment would’ve been unbearable to him.
“The party,” I say softly, jaw tight. “At Gabe’s.”
I don’t have to elaborate. I see it on his face, the flash of our history.
He knocked my drink out of my hand, spilled red punch all down my clothes, then he yelled at me to go home in front of everyone.
I cried myself to sleep, and I didn’t speak to him for months.
The memory presses between us, heavy and unspoken.
He doesn’t move. “They were spiking girls’ drinks. I needed you out of there. I needed you safe.”
I stand from the barstool, my chest heaving. His gaze follows every tiny movement. Maybe we’ll both be replaying it later. “You cut in on my dance with Brett Jackson at homecoming. He was my date, and you didn’t let me around him the rest of the night.”
He takes another step forward, around the island and toward me. The air in the room is charged, crackling with sharp electricity. “He told everyone you were going to hook up after the dance. I wasn’t going to let him touch you.”
My words come faster now, demanding. The memories flash in my mind like lightning in a thunderstorm. “You campaigned against me for prom queen. You told everyone to vote for Jenny instead.”
“Because the football team had set up a prank. Don’t you remember the video that played when Jenny was crowned? All those embarrassing photos. The drunk clip of her at that party.”
I swallow. I do remember. The teachers shut it down, but not before Jenny ran off the stage crying. She didn’t deserve that. No one did.
“Whichever of you won, they had a video planned. I couldn’t let you get embarrassed. I tried to warn you.”
He did. And now, every protective instinct he’s ever had seems to thrum under his skin, magnetized.
That memory throbs in my temples.
I didn’t believe him. I wouldn’t listen.
I was too angry. Too blind.
He takes another step toward me. I don’t step back. Not yet. There’s another step. We’re inches apart, our bodies aligned, drawn toward each other like we can’t help ourselves. I’m not sure we can. “You punched Banks.”
He clamps his mouth closed, jaw tight, focus drifting, though only briefly.
This one seems to bother him the most. I brace myself.
“I told him about the anniversary of your dad’s death.
I told him it was a hard day and that it would be your first one away from home, so he should try to make it special.
He told me…” Will pauses, flicking his gaze away again.
When he catches my eyes this time, there’s a tenderness there I wasn’t expecting. “That it wasn’t really his problem.”
The cold truth of his words stings like ice melting down my spine. I’m still not sure it merits a punch, but… “You were always trying to protect me?”
“In my own fucked-up way, yeah. I’m sure there were a million better solutions if I’d stopped to think it through, but I couldn’t. I just acted. And then it became a pattern. I never wanted to see you hurt or embarrassed. I couldn’t stand it.”
“Unless it was by you.”
“I knew my intentions,” he says softly. “Even if they all came out wrong.”
I suck in a shaky breath. “You could be lying about all of this.”
“I could be.” He takes another step, narrowing the distance until he’s so close I can smell the stormy scent of his cologne. My pulse ratchets up. “But I think you know I’m not.”
It’s hard to imagine a world where he’s not. Where everything I thought I knew is wrong. My voice is barely a whisper. “Why?”
With another step, his hand brushes along my arm, light but deliberate. He blinks. His eyes flash to my lips and back, a heat simmering behind them. “You know why.”
“I need you to spell it out for me.”
His shoulders straighten. With a deep inhale, his chest nearly touches mine, his voice low and heavy. “Because I… Opal…”