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There was a line, but that still left plenty of unsavoury things I would say to her.
I expected that to send her stomping back to her house. But she was my girl, and my girl didn’t just have a spine, she was never getting back into that fucking boring box again0.
“Just because your ego was bruised doesn’t give you the right to be a dick. All I’ve done is try here, Roman. We’re both well aware we’ve both messed up on multiple occasions, but we don’t lie to each other. Hide behind that bluster all you like, but I know you don’t think any time we spent together was a waste–”
“Do you? What are you? Some kind of fucking psychic?” I spat.
I hated how easily she saw me. The real me. It had taken her no time at all to see through the mask I wore. She saw the cracked and broken shell under it. She saw through my bluster and my brooding sarcasm. She understood me better than I understood myself.
I hated it. Hated how vulnerable she made me feel.
I wanted to hate her.
But I couldn’t.
“Do you know what?” she snapped. “I’m going to say something now Roman and you’re going to keep your damned mouth shut. You’re not going to want to hear it and I don’t really want to say it. But I’m out of options and this is the only way forward–”
I had to laugh at that, but there was no humour in it. She thought there was a way forward? Maybe she wasn’t quite so understanding as I’d thought.
“Forward?” I scoffed. “Iknewyou’d become one of those girls. I thought you’d be the only one not to. But you – like all those other idiots – think I can be changed!” She crossed her arms but didn’t interrupt me. “I don’t change, sweetheart,” I told her. The words I’d heard my whole life. “I am who I am. I’m the slacker degenerate the cops pick up for existing because bets are I’ve done something illegal. I’m the guy that every father dreads around his daughter. I get into so many fights no one bats an eyelid anymore. I’m the guy the school hasn’t expelled only because my father pays a shit tonne to keep me enrolled – like that’s going to make me pass. I’m the guy stuck raising his niece because his mum has to work harder so she feels like her family isn’t a failure, because her son’s a criminal and her daughter has zero sense of responsibility for her own mistakes. And still, I don’t change. No matter how much I love her. What makes you think I’m going to change for you? Huh?”
She didn’t say anything straight away and I didn’t know what was going through her head. I’d learnt a lot from her these past few months, but it seemed she’d learnt a lot from me as well. Her face was a mask. For once, I couldn’t read her.
“You finished?” she finally asked, and I said nothing. “Good. Okay. I listened to your self-pitying tirade, time for you to listen to mine. I quite frankly don’t give a shit about how you see yourself, because I know it’s crap. I don’t want you to change, Roman. I always loved you for you and nothing will change that. You might be all the things you say. But that’s not all you are, you idiot. Sweet little Piper Barlow might be stupidly naïve, but not when it comes to you. I asked you to meet me for… God, a multitude of reasons, to be honest. But the crux of it is this, I always told you that I was woman enough to ask you out if I wanted to date you. And, I am. So, I’m just going to tell you something and let you think about it.
“I don’t just love you. I fell in love withyou. The dark bits and the light bits and everything in the middle. You thinking you’re not good enough or you can’t give me what I need isn’t going to change that, because I know you are, and I know you can. You already did. I know I can be what you need, and I know you can be what I need. But, none of that matters if you don’t believe it. I want you to ask yourself why that is, Roman. What’s holding you back from being with me, really? I don’t want to change you. I never want you to change. I want you exactly as you are – moody, angry, degenerate criminal that you are who I know cares about me. Because you can hide behind a scowl and flippant words, but Iknow!
“You don’t…” Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard before continuing. “You don’t share what we did and not care. Not someone like you. You can tell me it was all for show, it was all for fun, you were only in it for the sex. Nothing that comes out of your mouth at this point could be unexpected. But I want to date you, Roman. It’s as simple as that. I want you to think long and hard why you believe it’s impossible, because I don’t. So…” She cleared her throat. “So, I didn’t plan on ranting quite so long. But, that’s it. I want to be with you. You’re that something I need, and you offer me something no one else can. So, you let me know if you change your mind. Otherwise, I guess I’ll see you around, Lombardi.”
She took a step to leave. She paused. But she didn’t say anything more. She just shook her head and took another step.
“Piper…” I managed to say.
I couldn’t give her what she needed, but I couldn’t let her go. She drew me to her, and I couldn’t resist her. Like I needed her to breathe.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t really need to hear how you can’t give me anything and I should be with someone else or whatever bullshit excuse it was you used the last time, okay? Ball’s in your court now.”
She started walking away and I felt the anger rise.
All she was doing was trying. She was fighting for us. She couldn’t fight for us. I couldn’t let her. I was barely strong enough to let her go as it was. Even she didn’t have enough power to fight for the both of us, because lord knew I couldn’t. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t strong enough.
And when I wasn’t strong enough, I made up for it with anger and retribution.
“I thought friends put the other first?” I accused her.
“Friends?” she huffed as she turned back to me. “Roman, we’re in love with each other.” Then she went on like she didn’t know she’d just sucker punched me right in the gut. “We may as well both have admitted it. This? Thisisputting our friendship first. We’re broken, Roman. We’ve been broken since you told me what you felt didn’t change anything. We tried just friends and it didn’t work because you were jealous of Mason, and I was angry you didn’t ask me to choose you when you had the chance. You want to be friends? Tell me you don’t love me.”
She had me in a corner. She knew she had me in a corner. I felt my back against the wall and my heart pounded in my chest.
Little Piper Barlow was standing in front of me with the strength of a hundred women. I’d never seen her so confident and self-assured. Had I not been on the defensive, I would have been harder for her than I’d ever been. The girl knew what she wanted, and she was going after it. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more than I did in that moment.
Which gave me no choice but what I did next.
“I don’t love you, Piper.” Considering how hard my heart cracked, my voice remained steady.
“Well, we said no lies. So, I guess that’s the truth, then,” she said, and I didn’t know whether she believed me or not.
She said nothing else, and I didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t sound defeated, just resigned. I could feel the air around us crackling with everything we’d both left unsaid. Well, that I’d left unsaid. Expectation threatened to suffocate me. Just as I was about to say…anything, she spoke.
