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I just knew hearing the wordlovefrom Chloe’s mouth changed…everything.
“W-why did you never tell me?” I managed to ask in a raspy voice, hoping she didn’t hear it tremble.
“Because it was freaking embarrassing,” she mumbled, still looking away and wiping at her eyes again. “You didn’t look at me like that, and no matter what I did to try to get your attention, you never really saw me.”
“Well… You didn’t try crawling on top of me naked,” I tried teasing, giving her a lighthearted grin. “And as I recall, that worked pretty well for my brother and T.”
Chloe sent me a dry glower and sniffed. “I love Teagan, but honestly, what she did felt like entrapment to me. I always had this sense that JB never had a chance to turn her down, you know. After the family found them together, they were basicallystuck. And I…I wasn’t like that. I wanted you to notice me because you justnoticedme andwantedme. Not because you were forced into it. Ineverwanted you to be forced.”
“But I…” I shook my head and laughed nervously. “To be honest, I never thought I wasallowedto look at any of the girls in our group that way. You were firmly placed in a do-not-go zone, as my brother calls it, and I respected and cared for youfartoo much to even consider crossing that line.”
“Beaudidn’t feel that way,” she argued, her eyes big with sadness and still dewy and wet from crying. “He would’ve been in the same situation as you, but he couldn’t help but fall for Bentley, anyway, no matter how taboo he thought it was. So I thought I should get that too.”
I shook my head, not sure how to argue with her, even though I felt like I should.
Meanwhile, Chloe kept talking.
“I thought that if someone loved me, it’d be obvious. He would show it in everything he did. And you never looked at me the way he looked at her. You never sought me out in a crowd, never paid me special attention unless I made sure I was right there, in your face, where you couldn’t avoid me. I just was notitfor you. And that’s okay. It’s not your fault. I know you have no control over who you fall in love with. But it helped show me more than anything that you justcannotlove me back.”
I didn’t like hearing this, so I shook my head and muttered, “Bullshit.” Then I looked up into her eyes. “Fine, I’m not like Beau,” I reasoned. “But what about—”
“Luke,” she cut me off softly, her sympathetic expression making me stop talking immediately. Then she shook her head. “It’s fine,” she assured me. “I wanted to know without a shadow of a doubt, and now I do. Youdon’tlove me. And that is why I’m not going to let you keep doing this. You’re just being forced into it, and even if I did agree and go along with it, you’d only grow to resent and hate me for it. So this ends, here and now. Alright? While we’re still friends.”
“No!” I insisted. “Because I’m not like Beau. I’m a fucking Hamilton. And we’re stupid, clueless men who don’t realize it’s okay to love a woman until there’s a glaring, neon light, pointing down at her head with sirens blaring to approve it. Don’t you understand? I thought you wereforbidden. And I cared way too much about you to let myself evenconsidercrossing a line with you. But now that I know Icanand am allowed to and even fucking encouraged to, why won’t you at least let me consider it and explore the possibility?”
“Because you broke my fucking heart!” she cried.
I pulled back, startled, and immediately let go of her when she pushed against my chest, demanding freedom. Breathing erratically, she climbed off my lap and stood so she could pace her room.
I watched her walk and collect herself until she glanced at me irritably and finally said, “You just don’t get it. Youcan’tget it. You have no idea what it’s like. You’ve never been in love. You’ve never had your heart broken. And let me tell you, it doesn’t just break once. It breaks over and over and over again, in new and painful ways you never expect. Every time you see that person… Every time you think about that person… God, every time yousmellsomething that reminds you of them or you hear someone laugh who laughs like them…the heartbreak… It just starts all over again, fresh from the beginning. And I’m sorry, but every time my heart has broken—like, truthfully been crushed to pieces by someone—it’s always been fromyou. And it’s the worst pain in the world.”
I stared at her, trying to absorb what she’d just told me, but I couldn’t seem to accept it. It just sounded wrong to my ears.
I’d never meant to hurt Chloe. So how in the hell had I managed to hand her theworst pain in the world?
“Well…” I murmured and tipped my head back against the bed so I could gaze up at her ceiling fan. “Fuck.”
I’d just been getting into the idea of pursuing her and falling for her and just…spending the rest of my life with her, too. I honestly could not conceive of doing that with anyone else. Andnotdoing it at all suddenly seemed…lonely. And miserable.
“The only way I learned to deal with it,” Chloe explained, twisting the knife even deeper, “was to be as mean and nasty toward you as I could and convince myself that I hated you until eventually… I moved on. But I’m officially done where you’re concerned. I’m truly sorry, but no… I’m not going through that again. Never. Ever. Again. There is no future for us. At all.”
I opened my mouth. Then shut it. When I nodded to agree with her, my stomach felt sour, and I thought I might vomit. But I couldn’t put her through that again, either.
She breathed out a sigh of relief and closed her eyes briefly, her shoulders falling an inch as she exhaled. “Thank you.”
Then she opened her eyes. “And with that said, I think you should go home tonight.”
“What?” Panic instantly filled my throat, and I surged to my feet to stand with her, already opening my mouth to object. “But—”
Chloe lifted a hand. “I’m doing better, and you haven’t had a nightmare since the first time.”
I lifted a finger to point out that I hadn’t had any nightmaresbecauseI’d been sleeping next to her every night. Except, she shook her head. “I’ve gotten up numerous times during the night since then, and it’s never woken you. You’re getting better, too. Wecansleep apart.”
Okay, maybe we could. But now, I just didn’twantto. I didn’t want to be anywhere but next to her.
I knew I didn’t have a case to argue my side, aside from the fact that I justwantedto stay, though, so I shut my mouth and looked at her, silently pleading for her to change her mind.
She suddenly looked worn out and tired. With a sigh, she rubbed her forehead and said, “Please, just… Go home, Lucian.”
