Chapter Nineteen #2
I think of every time I thought I was alone, every time I cried myself to sleep, every time I screamed at the ceiling, certain that no one in the world cared. I think of all the things I did, thinking no one would ever see.
He saw. He saw all of it.
It should make me sick, but all I feel is…seen.
"You were there when I got hit by the car in LA, weren't you?" I ask, the words leaving my mouth before I can stop them.
"Yes." There's no armor left in his gaze, just ruin.
"I was watching you, the same goddamn way I always watch you," he says, his voice a gritty rasp.
"I wanted to kill Andrews when I saw him talking to you.
I was halfway across the street before you stepped off the curb.
And then you walked right into traffic, and I—"
He breaks off, raking a hand through his hair again. "I was too far away to get to you. I was too fucking far away to do anything but watch."
There's so much pain in his voice, it makes my chest ache.
I try to remember being hit, but it's still all jumbled, a mess of pain and sound and then nothing.
"Did you see it happen?" I ask, needing to know.
He nods. "I've replayed it a thousand times.
I should have been there." His jaw clenches.
"If I'd been closer, you wouldn't have gotten hurt again.
You wouldn't hav—" he breaks off, shuddering.
"Blaming Andrews was easier than admitting that, even with all my watching, everything I did to try to keep you safe, I still failed you when you needed me. "
The silence between us is a living thing. It wraps around my throat, squeezing until I can barely breathe.
For a long time, neither of us says anything. I don't know if I want to scream or cry or reach out and comfort him.
All I know is that he's not lying. Not about any of it.
"You're sick," I say, but there's no heat in it. No anger.
He shrugs, a gesture so self-aware it's almost funny. "I know."
I pick up the phone again, scrolling through the feeds. There's a video from the night he made his offer. I'm standing in my kitchen in nothing but my underwear, eating yogurt straight from the carton. I look so small. So lost.
He reaches for the phone, but I hold it out of his reach.
"Is this all you have?" I ask, suddenly needing to know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
He shakes his head. "No. I have more."
I think of all the years of surveillance, all the data he must have amassed, all the private moments he watched. All the times I came, moaning his name, thinking my secret was safe in the dark.
"You really are a monster," I say, my voice shaking.
He looks down at the floor, ashamed. "I never wanted to be."
I believe him. God help me, I do.
I stare at the video for a long time, trying to reconcile the person I see with the one standing in front of me. They're both me, but one is exposed and vulnerable. The other is hard and angry and broken.
Maybe they're both true. Maybe I'm both versions, just as complicated and fucked-up as he is.
I look up to find him watching me with that same intensity, like I'm the only thing that matters in the world.
"Why didn't you stop?" I ask, the words jagged and sharp.
He winces, as if I slapped him. He knows what I'm talking about. "I tried."
"Not soon enough."
He doesn't argue. He just stands there, absorbing the blame, letting it settle on his shoulders like a punishment he's long since accepted.
"I've asked myself the same question a million times," he finally says. "I still don't have an answer, not a good one anyway."
"Try."
"I'd spent two years wanting you, trying to convince myself to kill those feelings, that it could never happen.
You were too young for me, and I was a fucking bastard for even thinking it," he rasps.
"And then you kissed me, and none of that shit mattered.
But I knew it was supposed to matter. I knew as soon as you stopped kissing me, it'd have to matter again.
You weren't even eighteen yet." He swallows hard.
"So when the light turned red, I just…didn't pull away. I kept kissing you."
"You called me a little girl."
"I never saw you that way," he rasps, staring at me like he's willing me to believe him.
"That part of you was ripped away when your parents died, when the whole goddamn world watched you grieve and wanted you to offer them comfort instead.
But I didn't want to be the one to take one more thing from you, to make you grow up even more. "
"I grew up long before I met you, Asher," I saw wearily. "You don't get to live like we do, with the whole fucking world watching, and still be a kid, not in our world."
This world—fame, notoriety, wealth—beats the innocence out of you long before it should.
I don't even remember the last time I felt that way—like any part of me was unstained or childish or naive.
I didn't have the luxury of childish things when the adult world was breathing down my neck, begging me to fill shoes never meant for me.
"I know. I wanted it for you anyway." He shrugs. "Even when I followed you everywhere, I wanted it for you."
I nod because I believe him. Until I kissed him, he never made a move, never touched me, never did anything.
For a long time, I thought my feelings were just my feelings, that he couldn't possibly see me the same way.
I'm not sure when that changed, or when I noticed that the way he looked at me was different.
But it was the way he looked at other men who looked at me that made me realize I wasn't in it alone.
It was like he hated them for seeing something attainable when they looked at me.
"Do you still watch me?" I ask after a moment.
He shakes his head. "Not since you left. I shut it all down. I haven't followed you. I haven't tried to break into your place. I couldn't—" He stops, swallowing hard. "I didn't want to see you hate me."
The admission is almost more than I can handle. I turn the phone off and set it face down on the desk.
He waits for me to say something, anything.
"You should have told me," I say, my voice soft.
"I know."
I stop, turn to face him. "No, you don't. You don't know anything.
How can you possibly know what it feels like from this side, Asher?
For five years, you've gotten to pry into every moment of my life, to see every secret, every second.
I didn't have that luxury. When I needed you, when I wanted to hear your voice, see your face, or fight with you just to feel alive, I didn't get to do that.
But you did. All you had to do was pick up your fucking phone, and you got to see me, live and in living color. I had to exist on memories and dreams."
I don't know why I'm so upset, but I am. Maybe because those memories and dreams were never enough. Maybe because the times between our fights were too long. I don't know.
"I know what I am, Brielle," he says. "I'll never deserve you. But I want to be that man. I'm trying."
There's a desperation to the last word, a plea I've never heard from him before. I look at him—really look. He's thinner than I remember, almost like he's been slowly fading away, too.
"I know," I say, softer than I mean to. "You look like shit."
He shrugs, a shadow of his usual arrogance. "Rehab will do that to you."
"You actually went?"
He nods. "I spent two weeks inpatient."
"For drinking?"
"For…everything."
The words hang between us, heavy and complicated.
"Did it help?" I ask.
He laughs, a short, painful sound. "No. Not really."
I move closer, needing to see the truth in his eyes. "Then why do it?"
He looks up, and for once, he doesn't try to hide from me. "Because I needed help. Because I've fucked up so much, and I didn't know how to stop. Because I don't want to be this anymore."
I lean on the edge of his desk, close enough to touch him if I wanted.
"I've hurt you over and over," he says, his voice so quiet I have to strain to hear. "I don't want to be that man anymore, Brielle. I can't be him anymore. Not and survive it."
His hands shake, just a little.
"You want to die," I say, a piece of my soul breaking at the thought.
"I wanted to," he admits, his eyes falling closed, as if the admission shames him.
"The minute you walked out, I wanted to end it.
Dying was easier than breathing in a world where you hated me.
But I made a promise to myself five years ago that so long as you were breathing, I'd keep breathing, too. I owed you that much."
The tears come, sudden and hot. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, choking on a sob.
He doesn't move, doesn't reach for me, doesn't try to fix it. He just waits, letting the silence grow.
"Five years," I whisper when I've got myself under control enough to speak. "You were there the whole time."
He nods. "Every day."
I wipe my face, looking at him through the blur.
"Do you regret it?" I ask, wanting to hear him lie, needing him to say that it was all a mistake, that he could have lived without me.
He meets my gaze, his as steady as ever. "Not for a second. I've never regretted a single second of loving you."
I believe him. I wish I didn't, but I do.
"I don't know how to forgive you," I say, my voice breaking.
He leans forward, his hands clasped. "Don't."
"What?"
He shakes his head. "Don't forgive me. Don't let me off the hook. If it helps you to hate me, then hold onto it."
I don't know what to say to that. I don't know how to exist in a world where he's this honest, where he's so willing to let me break him if it means I survive.
He sighs, the fight leaving his body. "I just want you to be okay. That's all I've ever wanted."
I want to scream at him, or throw something, or maybe just collapse onto the floor and never get up. Instead, I just stand there, watching him crumble.
We're both such disasters.
Maybe that's why we fit together so well.