“I think you’re acting like you’re morally superior.”
“I think you’re in my apartment because you feel guilty and want to turn that into my problem.”
I shoved his chest again, harder this time, my palms slamming into the solid wall of him. He shifted back only half an inch, but the countertop behind me rattled. A half-empty water glass tipped over with a sharp clink before rolling off the edge and shattering against the linoleum.
We both flinched at the sound, but neither of us looked down.
The shards glittered between our feet like a warning.
“You don’t deserve my apology,” I spat, my voice rising, raw and scraping against my throat.
His jaw snapped tight, a muscle leaping beneath the skin.
I felt the hit land and still didn’t stop because stopping meant standing still long enough to feel everything I was trying to burn away. My hands flew up, gesturing wildly, my arms cutting through the charged air between us.
“You don’t. Not after all this time making every room we shared feel like a punishment. Not after looking through me, talking around me, throwing girls in my face, turning every party into some twisted little test to see if I’d crack.”
My face burned, heat crawling up my neck and flushing my cheeks a furious red. “You want an apology for what I did? Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I panicked. I’m sorry I didn’t know how to be what you wanted.” I stepped forward, jabbing one finger toward his chest. “But you do not get to act like you’ve been some innocent casualty while you spent all that time making sure I bled in public for it.”
“I don’t want your fucking apology.”
The speed of it, the sheer cold fury, knocked something loose inside my chest. He didn’t yell. He didn’t need to. The words came out like he had held them behind his teeth all night, waiting for me to hand him a reason to spit them at my feet.
I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound, because it was the only sound sharp enough to survive. “Then what do you want?”
His hand left the counter, and he stepped closer, invading every inch of my space. “Answers.”
“No.”
His mouth curved, mean and mirthless. “You’re so good at that.”
“At what?”
“Shutting down the second I ask for anything real.”
“You don’t get real from me tonight.”
“You got in the car.” His voice snapped through the kitchen, rough enough to make me jerk back. His bandaged hand slashed through the air before he winced and dropped it to his side again. “You drove me here. You followed me upstairs. You pushed your way into my apartment. You cleaned my hand while looking at me like you wanted to stab me and climb me at the same time.”
He leaned closer, his face inches from mine, his split mouth pulled tight around the words. “Do not stand in my kitchen and tell me I don’t get real when you kicked the fucking door open.”
My back pressed harder against the counter, the edge digging into my spine. “You think you get answers because you beat Maddox bloody in a parking lot?”
“I think I get answers because I spent a year inside you, around you, under your skin, and you treated me like a toy you could fuck with until it broke.” His voice cracked, raw and brutal, and the bruise near his cheek pulled tight as his jaw clenched. “Then, when it broke, you acted shocked there were pieces.”
My breath caught in a sharp, audible gasp, and his eyes sharpened on it, gleaming with a horrible, victorious pain.
“Yeah,” he said, stepping into the reaction like he hated knowing where to push and loved that he could still make me move. His good hand flexed at his side, fist clenched so tightly the veins stood out along his forearm. “That one hit. Why now, Clarke? Why tonight? You were fine watching me hate you. You were fine watching me tear myself apart. You were fine watching me try to get over you with every girl who looked willing enough to make you mad.”
He took another step, forcing me to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. “Then some asshole opens his mouth, and suddenly you care? Suddenly you’re affected? Suddenly you lookat me with those fucking pleading eyes like I’m supposed to forget you had all that time to say something before tonight?”
“You don’t know what I was affected by,” I shouted, shoving his chest again. My hands bounced off him, useless.
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
“Then shut up about what I don’t know.”
