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“Why are you interested in explaining things now?”
“Because you’ve got it wrong,” I said.
“Oh, really? What have I got wrong?”
“I let you believe that I had cheated on you because I loved you,” I said, wondering if that even made sense. “Not because I didn’t.”
She frowned at me. “You just heard yourself, right?”
“Molly,” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to get my point across. “I’m an asshole, okay? I’m not good with women, and I’m terrible at relationships. I’ve been through more girls than I can count and in every single story, I don’t come off well. Ask my ex-girlfriends, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to tell you.”
“What’s your point?” Molly demanded.
“My point is that I would have done to you what I did to them,” I said. “I would have neglected you into leaving me. Hell, I was neglecting you for the past few months before you left. I would have ended up screwing this up at some point in the future. Then you would have left me and… It would have been harder to get over, for both of us.”
Molly frowned, in confusion. “Are you serious?” she asked. “That’s the reason you let me believe you were cheating on me?”
“I’ve never felt guilty about how things ended with my previous girlfriends,” I admitted. “And, that’s because I didn’t love any of them. Our connections were based on sex and that fizzled out eventually.
“But with you and me… It was different. You were the only woman I dreamed about that I felt I could never get. Then things happened
between us and I was so weak that I let it happen. And it was better than I could have imagined.
“But then work caught up with me, and I realized I was falling back into the old patterns. Work was becoming my focus and I realized that at some point, I would repeat all the mistakes I’d made in the past. But this time, I respected you, I loved you and I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you… So I thought it would be easier to let you make your assumptions to save you a whole lot of pain later on down the line.”
Molly stared at me, and all I wanted to do was grab her and kiss her. Looking into her eyes, I realized something. I realized how stupid I had been and how ridiculous my reasoning had been. Emma was right. I was a coward. And I had been too foolish to see that I had the ability to change my life, I had the power to control my future and I had the ability to make the right choices. Instead of trusting myself, I had pushed Molly away because I hadn’t been confident in my own feelings.
“Molly,” I said, taking a step towards her.
She backed away from me as though my very proximity was hurting her. “No,” she said. “Don’t.”
“I don’t deserve you Molly,” I said softly.
When Molly looked at me I could see the hurt radiating from her forget-me-not blue eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “You don’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Molly
His explanation sent a rage of emotion surging through me. At first, I found it laughably funny, then I realized how heartbreaking it all was, and then lastly came the anger. He had done all this just to get out of hurting me in the future? He had done all this because he might, possibly, maybe, perhaps, one-day screw things up between us?
Didn’t he realize that not being with him would hurt me either way? Whether it was now or ten years from now, it would always hurt, because Tristan was my soulmate. He was the person I was meant to be with and no matter how it happened or when it happened it would hurt to not be with him.
I was willing to try and move on when I had assumed he wanted nothing more to do with me. But to know that he still had feelings for me and had pushed me away for this hypothetical future scenario was mindboggling.
“Molly,” he said.
The sound of his voice saying my name was the catalyst. I walked forward and without even thinking about it, my hand whizzed through the air and made contact with the side of his face. Tristan’s face snapped back, but his body remained motionless. We both froze in place and a moment later, he looked towards me with eyes that were tortured and uncertain.
“I guess I deserved that,” he said softly.
I tried to push back the tears as I faced him. “You deserve worse.”
“I know,” he nodded. “Molly… I’m so sorry.”
I felt a tear slip free, and I tried to brush it away quickly. Tristan moved towards me as though he wanted to hold me, but I held up my hand and took a step back from him.
“No,” I said. “You don’t get to comfort me—not after you did what you did.”
