Page 281

She grips her chest, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t ask you to be alone.”

“Then what is this?” I throw one hand toward her. “What the fuck do you want from me? Was leaving you not enough? Was cutting out the only person I have ever wanted a future with not enough punishment? Did I need to spend every night alone too?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then say what you fucking mean!”

“I’m scared!”

“So am I!”

Charm’s mouth closes.

I pace toward the door before turning around. The trapdoor I have spent fifteen months holding shut shifts beneath every defense I built over it. I can feel the lock giving way.

She keeps asking.

She keeps pushing.

Tonight, she finally decided my patience means the answer will eventually become whatever she needs it to be.

“I’m lonely,” I tell her. “I have been so fucking lonely that Briggs gave up a contract most players would kill for and accepted Mills’s offer because he was afraid leaving me alone in Milwaukee would cost me whatever I had left.”

Charm goes completely still. “Briggs moved because of you?”

“He moved because I was losing myself to anger and pain while insisting I was fine. He walked away from a dream contract because I couldn’t ask for help.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That has become the fucking theme of our relationship.”

She flinches.

“I was hurting, Charm. I was fucking destroyed, and apparently even that isn’t good enough for you. I left you, so you believe I forfeited the right to need anyone. I was supposed to protect you from everything I went through, stay alone, and remain untouched in case you finally became ready to love me without shame.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. You stood there and offered your celibacy like proof you suffered more honestly.”

“That isn’t what I was doing.”

“It’s exactly what you were doing.”

She crosses the room, but I step backward before she reaches me. “Don’t.”

Pain tears through her face. “I wasn’t going to—”

“I know what you were going to do. You were going to touch me, cry against my chest, and wait for me to remember that comforting you is easier than finishing the truth.”

Her arms fall to her sides.

“Your suffering came from an illness already weakening you,” I say. “Losing me removed the thing you were using to stay above the bottom, and you fell into it. I understand that now. I understand it so fucking well that I hate myself for not seeing what was happening while I was beside you.”

“You couldn’t see it because I hid it.”

“I know.”

“I lied because I was sick.”