Page 16 of The Quiet After The Fall

“Why not?” he asks.

That’s not the response I expected. It takes me back for a second. “Because after everything, I realized it’s not her fault. She’s not the person I should focus my anger on.”

He blinks in realization.

“You, though.” I take a step closer and jab him in the chest and it feels good to let some of it out. “You’re a completely different story.”

His eyes drop to the ground. There’s no comeback. He doesn’t defend himself, doesn’t redirect. He just stands there and takes it, which somehow makes me angrier than him fighting back.

“You lied to me.” I keep my voice low so the couple walking past can’t hear. “You looked me in the eye and you fucking lied.”

“Sawyer—”

“No.” I cut him off. “You don’t get to say my name like that right now. You don’t get to do that thing with your voice.” I press my back against the brick and cross my arms because I need something to do with my hands or I’m going to put them on him and I can’t do that, I refuse. “In the hotel room. You said all the right things, and you had your hands on me, your cock inside me, and you knew. You already fucking knew what you were about to go downstairs and do.”

His jaw tightens and fists clench at his sides.

“Did fucking me make you feel better?” I ask. “Was that the plan? Get it out of your system before you go and do the right thing for the family?”

“That’s not⁠—”

“Because that’s what it felt like Knox.” My voice almost breaks and I hate myself for it. I swallow it down hard. “That’s exactly what it felt like.”

He looks up at me and the expression on his face squeezes my chest. I wish I could slap it off. He doesn’t deserve to look at me like that.

“You want to talk about what it felt like?” His voice is rough in a way I haven’t heard before. “You want to have that conversation right here on the sidewalk? For every gossiping cunt in this town to hear?”

“I want you to admit what you did.”

“I know what I did.” He takes a step toward me and I hold my chin high. “I know exactly what I did, Sawyer, and I have to live with it every single day. You think I don’t—” He stops himself to breathe deeply. “You think any part of that was easy for me?”

“Why the hell should I care if your choices were easy for you? It’s always been easy for you to use me as collateral, Knox. I’m the idiot who let it happen again.”

He flinches and I can’t help but feel good that my words hit him deep.

“And while we’re talking about choices,” I uncross my arms and tilt my head slightly, “maybe ask your fiancée about the ring she wears on a chain around her neck.”

I watch the color drain from his face. “What ring?”

“Oh, and what happened to you telling me about the shit with Owen and her, huh? That another thing you said to placate me?”

“What ring, Sawyer?”

“Owen’s ring!” I yell, causing a jogger to turn and gawk at us.

Knox crowds against me, but I shoulder check him, pushing him back an inch. The jogger moves on, but Knox is still just standing there, quietly working through something.

“She’s wearing his class ring,” I say, lower now. “On a chain under her shirt.” I hold his gaze. “So don’t stand here and tell me you have no idea what was going on between them. Don’t insult me like that.”

“I didn’t know about the ring.” He shakes his head. “I swear to you, I didn’t know.”

“But you suspected what was going on.”

He doesn’t answer, which is its own answer.

“You read those texts with me, Knox.” My voice cracks on his name. “You sat at my kitchen table and you read them and you said—” I stop, pressing my lips together. “You said he didn’t deserve me. And then you walked out and you never brought it up again.”

“I was trying to protect you.”