Nate grimaces, as if the fact hurts him nearly as much as it hurts me. Which is ridiculous; that was his plan all along, wasn’t it?
“No, I just want to talk to you,” he says.
Talk to me? If he wanted to talk to me, he should have called anytime in the past week and a half. But no, instead, he hid out here in this lavish castle. Nate is so fucking good at pretending—pretending to care about me, pretending everything is fine.
“About what?” I demand. “Should we talk about the beatings I took or how happy you were to lie to my face? Oh! Maybe we should discuss how fucking amazing your cock felt, knowing that I was allowing you to plunge it into my body while youbetrayed me.”
“Landon,” Nate hisses, and there’s so much anger and regret in his expression that I’m brought to the brink of being mute. “I know I fucked up. Iknow. But let me explain, let me make sense of this so that we can stop—”
“Hating each other?” I interrupt. “That’s not in the cards for us. The entirety of our time together was spent hating each other.”
“That’s not true,” he whispers, stepping around the island and into the open kitchen space. “Youknowthat’s not true.”
“Because I let you in? Because I gave you my secrets?” As Nate stares at me, unresponsive, I continue. “When you said you didn’t hate me, when you said you wanted to help me, was that a lie, too?”
“No! That wasn’t… that was true.”
“Funny. I think every bruise I have is a testament against that.” I wave wearily to the sling I’m sporting.
And Nate looks, his eyes falling to the fabric cradling me. He lookssad. The sight seems to hurt him, and it makes me want to wear it forever.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he assures me.
“That’s a fucking lie.”
He eyes me for a moment, considering it, before he sighs. “Alright, fine. Ididwant to hurt you. But not in the end. At the end of everything, I wanted toprotectyou.”
“What, after you figured out I’m not a horrible person?”
“Yes,” he replies sternly. “Once I sorted out that you weren’t evil, I wanted to keep you from the council.”
“I’msoglad you finally decided I’m not a piece of shit, Nathaniel. I—”
“Don’t call me that!” he shouts, taking another step toward me. “You call meNate. I’m Nate to you, Lanny.”
He sounds desperate now. Nate is looking at me so pleadingly that I almost don’t recognize him.
And I can say nothing, not in the face of his pain, and not in response to what he’s said. I’m spiraling now, balancing clumsily between loathing him and wanting him.
But how can I forgive what has happened? How do I get over that warehouse when I still wake up shaking from the memories?
“Explain it to me then,” I command, and it sounds so broken and just as desperate as he is.
Nate takes another step toward me, close enough to reach out and touch, as he says, “I’m not a nice guy. You and I both know that I’m not kind or considerate. I thought I could never trust again, that after what happened to me, I would never…careagain. But you, you proved me wrong. And I may be mean and unsympathetic, but I’m not a monster. I’m notevil.”
“That’s great and all,” I mutter, “but this isn’t really an explanation.”
“Can you be patient for two seconds?” Nate snaps, and I’d grin if things were any less tense between us. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m hardwired to see the worst in people. I’m sorry that it took me so long to see the good in you, and that I couldn’t see how fucked up EP was before they got their hands on you.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?” he asks, tilting his head in confusion.
“Why are you hardwired to see the worst in people? What actually happened to you?” I clarify.
If I can understand that, maybe I can understandthis.
But Nate’s walls immediately lock themselves back into place, blocking me out. He gives me a hard, uncertain frown as his mouth snaps shut and he stands rigid.
