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“You bought it?”

Nothing.

I pivoted in my seat to look at him full-on.

“We should go,” he said.

“Chris—”

“It’s not a big deal—”

“It IS. It’s a seven-hundred-dollar medication that you don’t have a prescription for.”

“Heather wrote me one. I don’t want to talk about this right now. We’re both tired. Let’s just get your—”

“No.” I shook my head. “You want me to come stay with you, you tell me the truth. I’m so sick of being lied to.”

“I don’t lie to you—”

“No, you just don’t tell me things.”

He pressed his lips into a line.

“Why is this a secret?” I asked. “Why are you sneaking around throwing away nuts and buying expensive emergency medication and cleaning snow off my car, because I know it was you.”

He didn’t answer. And I was done. Fuck everyone. Even him. I got unbuckled and started to get out.

“Larissa—”

“No!” I spun on him. “Tell me the truth!”

He studied me like he was weighing the pros and cons of calling my bluff.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I did those things.”

“What else.”

“I don’t know—”

“Yes, you do. What else?”

“Lots of things,” he said, throwing up his hands. “All the time. Since the beginning.”

I blinked at him.

“I made Mike pay to fix your car,” he said. “I told him to get you the jewelry box—I bought your Christmas gift because he got you those fucking cookies that he almost killed you with. I carry an EpiPen because the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me is something bad happening to you. I have died every day for almost a year watching him mess up with you over and over again and all I can do are these stupid little things that make your life better or easier or safer… The EpiPen is nothing. The snow is nothing. It’s not even…” He trailed off and wiped a hand down his mouth. “I would do anything for you,” he whispered. “If I had a nut allergy, I’d taste your food to make sure it’s safe and if it wasn’t and I died, I’d die happy because I died protecting you. Do you understand?”

I stared at him, my heart pounding against my rib cage. He looked at me with red, almost apologetic eyes, like he’d just given me bad news. And in a way he had.

All this time… It was him.

And the second he said it, I knew it was true. Like I’d always known but I’d been choosing to believe the lie.

All the things I loved about Mike, the considerate, selfless gestures that pushed me closer to him, endeared me to him, made me think he was a different person than he was. It was Chris. It was always Chris.

And now it never would be.

Do you understand?