I laughed once—sharp, bitter. “Oh, right. Because your track record issospotless, Eden.”
He froze. “Wait, what?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Well, what am I supposed to think about someone with a reputation like yours? How could I be sure you’re not lying to me right now just so I wouldn’t bemad. I know too much, don’t I? Maybe you’re scared that I’d talk so you come running to me to lie.”
My words seemed to hit him like a slap, and perhaps it was unjustified. I should’ve known Eden was better than that.
Iknewhe was better than that.
His face crumbled. “Are you serious right now?”
I didn’t blink.
“You think that’s who I am?” he asked, voice going thin. “Some guy who sleeps around for fun and doesn’t care who he hurts? Some guy wholiesto save his ass? I’d own the fuck up to my bullshit if it were true.”
“I think…” I swallowed, hard. “I think it’s a lot easier to believe that than the alternative. That you were actually serious about me. That I wasn’t just anoth?—”
“Alana.” His voice dropped, raw and breaking. “I was nevernotserious about you!”
“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me what we were?” I snapped, the words tumbling out too fast now. “You kissed me and held my hand and let me fall for you and then just—never said anything! What was I supposed to think? That it was all just in my head?”
“I thought you were head over heels in love with fucking Bennett.”
My gaze fell to the floor. “I haven’t been for a while.”
I heard Eden suck in a sharp breath, his silence stretching torturously between us.
Part of me knew he was going to be pissed that I didn’t tell him. The other part was sure he didn’t care. As long as he got his baking lessons, it didn’t matter who I was after.
“For a long while, actually,” I admitted, needing to saysomething.
“How long?”
I looked back up, our eyes meeting. When I thought he looked beat-down before, this was topping it. There was so much confusion in his eyes, betrayal even. It made no sense.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“It sure does.”
“Why?”
“Because I was out here thinking I had no other choice but to let you go eventually! If I had known?—”
“Then what, Eden?” My eyes rolled involuntarily. “Nothing would’ve changed. You’d still graduate and leave me behind! You’d still go off on a new adventure without me. It was our deal, remember? You only wanted baking lessons until you graduate. After that, the deal was over. Itisover.”
“No, it fucking isn’t!” Eden took a step back, raking a hand through his hair.
“Even if I had told you, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that Tori published the article. Whether she lied or not, I still wouldn’t have believedyou.”
His eyes welled up, glassy now. He nodded to himself, slowly backing off further and further. “It was real to me. Alana, you’re the only person I’ve ever looked at and thought—yeah, her.Thisis the person I want to wake up next to for the rest of my life.”
Don’t cry, I begged myself. Don’t you dare.
“I’m in love with you,” he said, quietly this time. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t plan it. But it’s true. I thought that maybe, just maybe, deep down you felt the same way about me. I guess I was wrong.” He was almost at my door, ready to leave. “I thought you knew me better. I thought…” Eden took a deep breath, a tear rolling down his face. “I thought I’dfinallyfound theoneperson who wasn’t going to use me the way everyone else did. Or at least I thought you weren’t going to use that against me.”
I turned away, blinking hard at the ceiling like maybe that would hold the tears in.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not asking you to say it back. Honestly, I think it’s better you don’t feel the same way I do,” he went on. “I just want you to know. I want you to know that I never touched her. I never looked at anyone else. The only girl I’ve wanted for months… isyou.”
