Page 40 of River & Rue

He barks a laugh. A real one. Twinkling eyes with fanning creases and that lopsided grin, the right side boasting a single dimple as though a smile like his needed punctuation.

A volcano erupts in my chest. Boiling lava and incendiary rain with an Armageddon chaser.

I shuffle back a step.

River’s smile fades to a bemused frown. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, totally fine. You know what? Let’s forget I asked. It’s super rude of me to pry into your personal life. None of my business, right? Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

I’m forty-five degrees into my escape spin when his voice lassos me to a halt.

“I’m not trying to make anyone hate me. This is the real me.”

I whip back around. “Bullshit.”

He’s facing the railing, staring toward the trees on the other side of the clearing. “It’s not. You’ve been right all these years, Rue. I really am a shit person.”

I stare at him so long that when I remember to blink, my eyes burn. My chest burns too. I don’t bother pretending it’s heartburn this time.

With a few unguarded sentences, he revealed more than he probably realizes. Because I recognize his wound now—I understand it as only someone who’s survived it can. Even if it seems impossible to me that he’d ever suffer this particular pain, it explains so much. Everything, really.

He trusted someone with his heart and they hurt him. No… worse. They shattered him so completely that he lost faith in himself.

My wound happened a long time ago, but his is recent. Still raw and bleeding. And there’s only one person who could have inflicted it.

Elise Devereux.

A month after they started dating, River told his parents she was the one. A few months after that, his long-term goal of moving back to Seattle was put on indefinite hold. Then he stopped visiting at all, presumably because Elise was afraid of flying.

Rose and Julian are the only ones who met her. According to Ivy, they weren’t fans. But their son seemed healthy and happy, which was all that ultimately mattered to them.

Unlike her parents, Ivy didn’t believe River was happy. Over time, he became guarded and remote on their video calls. Eventually, the calls stopped altogether, their communication diminishing to sporadic texts. When she found out River and Elise moved in together, she was inconsolable for days. And when they broke up a few months ago, her reaction was equally extreme—for her. She called Olive, and in a rare moment of accord, the twins went out to celebrate.

Looking at River now, I wish I’d gone with them. Even more so, I wish I could get my hands on Elise. I’d love to kick her in the tits. Shave her head and eyebrows. Maybe feed her a few of her own fingernails. It’s an uncomfortable realization for me—my blind judgment of a stranger, my desire to defend a man I’ve wanted to strangle countless times.

But I want to lash out at him too. Berate him for trusting the wrong person. Tell him he’s smarter than this. Stronger. That he’s one of the best people I’ve known, and no one—absolutely no one—deserves to have this kind of power over him.

Words crowd my mouth, but none of them are constructive or even reasonable. They’re the product of my own wound. Scar tissue breaking, trapped toxins spreading once again.

My anger is misplaced, the fear beneath it irrational. I can’t be afraid of losing River.

He’s not mine.

“Nothing to say? I thought you’d be happy. At the least, I expected you to rub it in my face a little.”

His mask is hanging by a thread, exposing uncertainty where none should be. It makes me even angrier.

“I don’t think you’re a shit person, you dumbass.”

His brows lift. “Very convincing.”

A deep breath does nothing to calm my racing heart, but it does mellow my tone. “I know we’ve had our differences over the years, but believe it or not, I’m not cool with you demeaning yourself.”

To my relief, he picks up the lure, his lips quirking. “You’re the only one allowed to be mean to me?”

“Pretty much.”

His gaze sharpens. “Am I the only one allowed to be mean to you?”