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“You didn’t deserve a choice!” The answer explodes out of me. “I ensured you couldn’t reach me because I hated you for what you did to me.”
Charm recoils as though I struck her, but she doesn’t retreat. Her arms wrap around her stomach while she stares at me through the tears spilling over her cheeks.
“I hated your apology,” I continue. “I hated every message and every person who tried to carry your pain into whatever room I was using to escape it. I took my key, locked the door, blocked your number, and left the chat because you had already used every chance I was willing to give.”
“I know.”
“You came after me anyway.”
“I know.”
“You followed me to Flint. You stood outside my truck and cried while I refused to look at you. You came into the lodge after I told everyone to keep you away from me.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then stop saying I abandoned some fight you chose not to make. Your chance to fight for me was in that study, not what came after it.”
“I know!”
Her voice breaks, but the rage survives inside it.
“I know when I was supposed to fight for you. I know exactly where I failed. You gave me the words, Ryan. You stood there and told me what you needed, and I did nothing.”
Her mouth twists around the final word. She bites into both syllables until nothing sounds like something she despises enough to break between her teeth.
“I did nothing,” she says again. “I stared at the floor while the man I loved begged me to tell the truth. I knew what you warned me would happen. I knew what leaving that room without me would mean, and I still did nothing.”
My hands curl into fists. “You were afraid, right?”
“I was always fucking afraid!”
“Exactly! That never stopped being the answer.”
“No, it didn’t, and I am sorry!” She strikes both hands against her chest. “I was afraid of Lance. I was afraid of my mother. I was afraid of our friends realizing how long I had lied to them. I was afraid of every woman who looked at you, every person who would say I wanted your money or your future, and everyone who would decide I wasn’t good enough to keep you.”
“You were afraid of what loving me said about you.”
“Yes!”
The answer tears out of her without hesitation, and it makes me sick. Not because the truth surprises me. Some part of me always knew she was ashamed of being seen with me. I feel sick because she has never been more honest, and every word exposes how little she cared about herself while making me pay the cost of it.
“I was ashamed of what people would think about me for loving you, and I made you carry every ounce of that shame. I let you believe it belonged to you when it never did.” Her hand presses against her chest. “I was ashamed of myself, Ryan. I hated myself so fucking much that I couldn’t understand why anyone who looked like you, loved like you, and fought the way you did would ever want someone like me.”
“So, you hid me because it kept everyone happy. I paid the cost, but it kept you safe.”
“Yes.”
I laugh without humor and scrub both hands over my face. “You fucking lied to me, Charm.”
“Yes.”
“You made promises you knew I believed.”
“Yes!”
The naked truth shocks me even after everything else. “What the fuck did you think would happen?”
“I thought exactly what happened!” she screams. “I knew you would leave. You told me you would, and I believed you. I just didn’t understand that when you walked out, I would lose every fucking thing holding me together.”
