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My tone sounds accusatory and he hears it too.
It thickens the lines of amusement around his mouth and eyes, and his own arms move, both his hands burying in my loose and wild hair. “I thought you wanted me to be nice.”
I shift on my feet, restless. “Not like that. Never like that. I don’t want you to hide your emotions, ever. I like you the way you are. All mean and rude. Completely impolite. And I promise I’ll never hit you.”
“What if I deserve it?”
I chew on my lips, thinking about it. “Well, maybe I’ll hit you then. But only a little bit.”
A smirk blooms on his mouth. “Very charitable of you.”
“Stop making jokes. This isn’t funny. This…” I grab his chain at the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you say anything? All this time. All this time I thought… I thought I could do something to get you guys back together, and this dinner…” I take a deep breath. “I went to Leah, Arrow. I went to see your mom and I told her that we should do something to… to make you both see reason. And she’d already planned this dinner. But I want you to know that I knew about this. I knew about the dinner and that Sarah was going to be here. I hid it from you because I thought you wouldn’t show up and… God, I’m so sorry, Arrow. I put you through this. I could’ve saved you. I could’ve spared you the pain and –”
“No one could’ve spared me the pain,” he speaks over me with an almost lashing voice. “No one could’ve saved me.”
I swallow painfully. “Why didn’t you say anything, Arrow?”
His eyes flick back and forth between mine, a painful, tormented look flashing in them, and my witchy heart squeezes and squeezes.
“For months,” he whispers, his rough words vibrating between us, “she lied to me. He lied to me. He was my closest friend. I trusted him. I trusted him with my game. He knew about my plans. He knew that I was going to propose to her. He knew that. He knew I had a ring. But I was stupid, wasn’t I?
“I was blind. I was fucking dumb. Because for months, they went behind my back and I didn’t suspect anything. I had no clue. I had no goddamn clue. I thought everything was fine. I thought everything was okay. Every fucking thing was perfect. But it wasn’t. You hear stories about guys who get taken on a ride and you think, how fucking stupid do you have to be to miss that? How fucking stupid do I have to be to miss that? I’m The Blond Arrow. I’m supposed to win. I’m supposed to be perfect. Flawless. But I’m not, am I? I’m a failure. I failed in my relationship.”
Oh God, no.
Please, please don’t let him think that. Don’t let him put this on himself.
Arrow puts so much pressure on himself as it is. He thinks everything is his fault and he beats himself up over it so much. I don’t want him to think this is his fault too, his failure. When it’s not.
This is absolutely not his fault and he’s making me cry and I can’t cry right now.
If I start, I won’t stop and I can’t do that. I have to be there for him. I have to tell him that he’s not a failure.
I grab his face then. I grab it and I dig the pads of my fingers in the hollows of his sculpted cheeks.
“You didn’t fail, Arrow. You were betrayed, okay? She betrayed you and I still can’t believe that she did that. But it’s not your fault. It’s not your failure.”
He grinds his teeth for exactly eight seconds – I counted – before saying, “Well, I got cheated on, didn’t I? And I was the one who didn’t know about it so whose failure is it, if not mine?”
I go to say something else, something that will make him understand.
Only I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to make him understand when he believes himself so wholeheartedly. When it’s written all over his face, his tight and stubborn features.
His pained features.
God, there’s so much pain. So much torment and I don’t know what to do.
Except…
Except pull him closer and kiss his clenched jaw.
And his thrumming cheek.
I do it all lightly, simply a peck. But the effect of it on him is loud and jarring.
His brows snap together as his eyes focus on me. They lose their cloudy, pained look and a light flashes in them.
“What are you doing?” he growls, his fingers flexing in my hair.
“Giving you the answer to the question you asked me a long time ago.”
Or at least it feels like it. That it was a long time ago. When in reality, probably only a couple of weeks have passed.
