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I imagined them attending class together, romantic picnics in Lincoln Tower Park, watching the Buckeyes on game day, and lazy Sunday mornings in his dorm room.
That should have been us.
The thought sucker punched me in the chest, and I clenched my eyes tight, forcing out the useless thoughts.
“Oh, I have more. They—”
“Stop.”
“What?” Marissa said, and I could practically hear the frown she wore. “Come on, Penny. We need to know the facts. He left you the note, so he’s obviously not happy with her. Who would be…” She launched into a dissection of their relationship, but I tuned out.
Blake had said it was complicated; only now I realized he didn’t mean Brittany.
He meant with me.
I was the complication.
That wasn’t good enough for me though. I didn’t want to be someone’s problem or hurdle… or temptation. I wanted to be someone’s reason.
I wanted to be Blake’s reason.
Foolishly, I let myself believe that maybe we were getting a second chance.
But now, all I saw was a million reasons why our ending would never be rewritten.
CHAPTERTWENTY
Blake
Age 17
I hated this fucking place.
And I hated Anthony Weston.
He had ruined everything.
Everything.
Ripped me from the only person I cared about. The one person who needed me.
The other half of my soul.
At first, when Derek and Marie had requested I join them in the living room—their room—I thought they were going to give me more shit. Any little excuse to hound me, and they were on me like flies on shit. But when the man in the expensive suit walked in, I knew something was up.
I didn’t expect to find out he was my uncle on Mom’s side.
Anthony Weston of West Lake and Associates, one of the biggest law firms in all of Columbus. He’d tracked us down—well, tracked Mom down only to discover she was six feet under thanks to my drug-dealing father, who was now locked up in prison.
Derek and Marie sat with their smug grins as Anthony explained he had come to take me away. I would have been lying if I said escaping the Freemans’ wasn’t a tempting offer, but if Penny wasn’t going, then neither was I.
It had taken Anthony and Derek both to manhandle me out of the house and into the Town Car waiting at the side of the house. Now, I was a prisoner in their damn near mansion on the outskirts of Upper Arlington.
“Blake. Please come down for dinner,” Aunt Miranda called, easing some of the storm in me.
I’d tried to hate her—wanted to—but it was impossible when the woman looked at me with such understanding and patience.
I pushed off my bed and made my way downstairs. When I’d arrived at the house, a little over two weeks ago, they’d shown me to a bedroom furnished for your average seventeen-year-old.
