One of his black brows rises. “Shouldn’t I be?”
Our confrontation in the bakery flashes through my head as if it happened this morning instead of so many days ago. That desire to defend myself against his anger and accusation then that I bit back.
I can’t swallow it now.
We’ve reached a breaking point that won’t allow me to.
“Did you ever think, for one second, that maybe I wrote that article to protect you?”
He barks out an incredulous laugh that sounds so wrong in the context of what just happened in this space. “Yeah? How the fuck would that work?”
“Because I saw how much you were struggling, and I thought if anyone went looking for you up on the mountain, it might push you to do something stupid. I thought writing that article would prevent a confrontation that could push you over the edge.”
“I’m well over that fucking edge, Raven.”
I clench my hands into fists on my lap. “I know.”
Now, I see that. Now that I’ve experienced this place and understand what he’s doing here. Now that I know he hasn’t been sleeping at all because this is what happens.
No one could remain stable given everything he’s been through, let alone piling on the physical exertion and sleep deprivation.
He releases a long sigh and tips his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “You really expect me to believe that your motive was completely altruistic? Because it doesn’t suit you.”
I’d love to be mad at the statement, but he isn’t wrong.
It wasn’t completely altruistic.
“Of course, I’m always looking for stories for my site, but you know that I protect the people I care about.”
It’s why I helped Willow craft her own article about what happened to her. So she would be in control of it, so she would regain the very thing that was taken from her so violently for a year. Control.
His head lowers slowly until those dark, hard eyes meet mine again. “We both know you don’t care about me, Raven. You’ve always hated me and gone out of your way to make sure I know it.”
“So have you.”
His jaw tightens, a muscle there ticcing. “You think I’ve always hated you?”
The question hangs in the thickening air between us, and I see the genuine confusion in his eyes. “You’re joking, right?”
He shakes his head. “We were all friends once, Raven. All of us. So, how can you really think that?”
“Because you made it very fucking clear how you felt about me.”
His hand tightens into a fist on the top of the table.
I don’t need to clarify what I’m talking about. He knows exactly as I do the moment that changed everything between us. The moment when our little group of friends became filled with the tension of our rift. The moment I knew deep in my gut that Connor McBride hated me and always did. The moment I began to truly hate him, too.
Even in the fifteen years that have passed, that moment has stayed fresh in my head. Crystal fucking clear. Impossible to forget.
All those feelings that swamped me are still so fresh, as if it only happened yesterday instead of back in high school.
Connor slowly leans forward. “I’m sure we can’t be thinking about the same thing, Raven, because what I did had nothing to do with hating you.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Then what the hell would you call it?”
“I was trying to protect you. I was trying to keep you from making a huge fucking mistake.”
My laugh floats around the small space, but there is zero humor in it. There can’t be when there’s absolutely nothing funny about what he did to me or the fact that he somehow thinks I’ll buy his bullshit now. “That’s a pretty fucked up way of looking at it. All you did was crush me.”
