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He knewme.
It was unsettling because he’d already taken so much of our relationship and crushed it right in front of me. And it felt like any bit of information I gave him would suffer the same fate.
It made me insecure in myself and my past when I never had been before—but he’d never judged me before. Yet everything I did and said seemed to make those eyes grow colder and more hateful.
“Do I already know?” Chase asked, drawing my attention to where he was still intently watching me. When a questioning hum sounded in my throat, he clarified, “Why you’re not a physical therapist anymore.”
“You know everything about me,” I whispered, hating that those words were no longer true. “But it isn’t important.”
“It feels important.”
“I toldyou,” I said quickly, voice straining. “I told the man I trusted because it all happened after I’d already fallen in love with you. I’m not telling the guy who looks at me like I’m single-handedly ruining his life.”
His mouth parted to speak, but a breathy laugh left him instead. “Yeah, makes sense.” His head bobbed subtly as he reached for his food, only to let it fall to the table again. “I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s like I can’t stop. Which sounds like bullshit,” he muttered as his gaze flashed to me before drifting to the side. “But you’re right—what you said. As unfair to you as it is, that’s how it feels.”
The air rushed from me on a pained wheeze at his admission.
I’d known. I’dfeltit. But having him confirm my suspicionshurt.
“I feel so fucking conflicted,” he went on, then gestured to me. “I get that we were together. But every thought and want—”
“God, Chase, stop,” I pled as I stood from the couch, snatching the carton from the end table as I did. “I can’t handle you telling me you’re in love with Harper again.”
A hollow of agony formed in my chest as I blindly staggered into the kitchen. The food almost slipped from my fingers when his words replayed in my mind and nearly knocked me to my knees.
“I get that we were together.”
Were...he’d saidwere.
No, no, no. He—
This isn’t real. This isn’tpermanent. It can’t be.
I refused to believe this was truly the end of us.
I fought the cry begging to escape and hastily set the container on the island as I rushed for the garage door. My lungs aching and screaming by the time I made it out there before I let it go.
The pain.
The tears.
The anger.
All of it bursting from me on a soggy curse as I shakily held myself up against a wall. That hope I’d been clinging to earlier all but gone as I realized each blow to my heart hurt more than the last, and it was getting harder to believe we could make it through this.
I straightened from the wall and wiped at my cheeks when the door began opening minutes later but kept my back to him to give me that extra time to try to compose myself.
“Yeah, see, even though I don’t know you, I don’t like that I’m doing this to you,” he began in that soft, rumbling voice that had always gotten to me. “But lying to you will only give you hope that we’ll go back to however you remember us.”
My eyelids slipped shut as the tears fell harder.
“And I’m sorry I’m hurting you with all this bullshit about Harper, but—” A hesitant laugh left him. “This sounds stupid, but I want to say I know how you feel. Even though I guess I don’t because I was apparently never waiting for her to choose me over Brandon.”
I wanted to tell him that ithadbeen real. That what he was remembering had beenourstory.Ourpain. But that void in my chest grew at the sadness and longing in his voice.
“I want to remember, Scarlet. I’m trying to. But right now, thisfeelsreal to me.”
“You’re already breaking my heart, Chase,” I mumbled as I finally opened my blurred eyes. “Don’t insult me by lying aboutthiswhen you just said you wouldn’t lie to me about the rest.”
