Page 173 of Make Me Mean It

Just Marcus.

Something in my chest loosens so suddenly it almost hurts.

“I’m more concerned about your taste,” he adds, narrowing his eyes at me as the corner of his mouth twitches. “Did it have to be Theo?”

A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, small and shaky and a little too close to something else.

I look down again.

“Yeah.” My throat tightens around the word, but there’s no hesitation behind it this time. “It did.”

Because that part I know.

Whatever the fuck the rest of this means, whatever I am or what happens now, it was always going to be Theo.

Marcus drops his head back against the sofa with a groan, dragging both hands through his hair before gripping it like he can physically rearrange whatever’s happening inside his head.

“Well, shit.”

I glance at him.

He turns his head slowly towards me, studying my face for a second too long.

“You’re in love with him.”

My entire body goes cold.

“No.”

It comes out so fast it practically trips over itself.

Marcus’s eyebrows lift.

“No, I...” I shake my head, pulse suddenly hammering against my throat. “No. I’m not. I—no.”

Except the denial feels different now.

It doesn’t settle neatly into place the way it usually does. It just hangs there, flimsy and fucking useless, while every memory I have of Theo seems to shove itself forward at once.

Theo on the ice.

Theo laughing at me.

Theo calling me princess just to piss me off.

Theo beneath me.

Theo asking me not to leave.

Theo standing outside the house with tears in his eyes while he told me he’d taken every scrap I gave him and convinced himself it was enough.

The ache beneath my ribs pulls so tight I press a hand against it without thinking.

Fuck.

“M-maybe.”

The word cracks on the way out.