The tears break something in my chest but I’m too tired and too angry and too defensive to let it show.
“It wasn’t a lie!” My voice is rising now. “Everything I did was to avoid making a scene so I could get Sofia out safely. Every single choice I made was to get her out of there without anyone noticing or making it harder.”
“You lied by omission,” she spits out. “You knew I had concerns about your reputation, Jack. We talked about it multiple times. And you still chose to tell me a sanitized version of what happened.”
“Why should I have to give you a play-by-play of every single second?” I shoot back. “I told you the important part. I was there for Sofia. Everything else was just circumstantial details that didn’t change the actual truth of why I was there. You wanted me to narrate every fucking moment?”
“Those details matter, Jack!” She’s yelling now. “The context matters! And the fact that you didn’t think I deserved to know the full story matters more than anything.”
“You’re taking a ten minute video and assuming the worst about me,” I argue, desperation creeping in now. “You’re not even listening to my explanation, you’re just?—”
“Iamlistening,” she interrupts, her voice breaking. “You’re just not saying anything that makes this better.”
“So what do you want me to say?” My voice is rising again, frustration boiling over. “That I’m sorry I didn’t give you a breakdown of every second I was at that party? That I should have known you’d see some edited video and immediately assume I’m exactly who everyone warned you about?”
“Maybe youare!” she yells, and there are tears streaming down her face now. “Maybe everyone online is right. Maybe I was just the summer girl who helped fix your image so you could get your contract back!”
The words hit me like a physical blow. “Is that really what you fucking think?” My voice is hard, cold. “That you were just some image rehabilitation project? That I didn’t actually care about you?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she shoots back, wiping her eyes furiously. “How am I supposed to trust anything when you pick and choose what to tell me?”
The silence stretches between us, heavy. She’s looking at me like she’s waiting for me to say something that will fix this. But I don’t know what that is. Maybe there isn’t anything.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. I’ve never been good at relationships, never stayed in one long enough to actually learn how to do them right. And now I’m proving exactly why. “Maybe we should have kept this fake,” I hear myself say.
The words hang in the air between us like poison.
Lark goes completely still. When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “What did you just say?”
I should take it back immediately. Tell her I didn’t mean it, that I’m just tired and stressed and saying shit I don’t mean. But that familiar wall is already sliding into place.
“Maybe this was easier when it was just an arrangement,” I say, hearing how cold my voice sounds. “No expectations. No one getting hurt.”
“You know what? Maybe you’re right.” Her voice breaks. “Maybe this should have stayed fake. I can’t believe I thought you were different.”
She’s right. I’m still the same guy who fucks everything up, who runs when things get difficult, who hurts people without meaning to. So I just stand there. Silent. That wall getting higher with every second I don’t apologize, don’t take it back, don’t tell her I love her, which I absolutely do. But something in me won’t let me say it.
“I need you to leave,” she finally says. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Lark—” I start, but I don’t even know what I was going to say.
“Please justgo.”
I pause with my hand on the doorknob. Some part of me is screaming to turn around, to fix this, to tell her I’m sorry. That I love her. That I’ll figure out how to be better at this. But I can’t make myself turn around. So I just open the door and walk out, letting it close behind me with a soft click that sounds like finality.
I don’t go back to the cabin. Don’t pack up my shit or say goodbye to my brothers. I just get in my rental car and drive straight to the airport, book the next flight to Monaco, and sit in the departures lounge staring at nothing.
This is who I am. Who I’ve always been. The guy who fucks things up and runs. Never stays in one place long enough for anything to matter. It was a mistake to think I could be different, that I could be the kind of guy who deserves someone like Lark. And now I’ve hurt both of us, exactly like I always knew I would.
She does deserve better. And now I’ve proved it.
CHAPTER 27
LARK
It’s been three days since Jack walked out of my apartment and I can’t stop replaying the fight in my mind. Every word. Every accusation. Every moment I wish I could take back.
I don’t know which emotion is stronger. How pissed I am at him for lying by omission about Monaco. How mad I am at myself for attacking him when I’d told myself I’d approach it calmly. Or how I miss him so badly it physically hurts, like someone hollowed out my chest and forgot to put anything back.
