Now I knew where this was going. After every fucking thing we’d talked about, everything he’d seen me do already, he didn’t fucking think I could handle it.
“You haven’t even given me a chance, and here you are, dwelling on this shit, trying to figure out what’s best for us?”
His gaze lifted to the sky, his eyes shifting as though he were thinking about the stars rather than what I was saying. “I don’t want to be the reason that you fuck up your life,” he muttered, and I could already feel the tears starting.
Oh, shit.
I didn’t know breakups for shit, but if ever anything sounded like breakup words, those were it.
“Well, clearly, you’ve already decided what’s best for me,” I said through my teeth.
He opened his mouth, and I waited for him to say something, but he stopped himself. “Keeg…” he finally managed.
“Keegan!” came from behind me, and I turned to see Steve opening the French doors onto the balcony, cradling Casey in his arms. Casey clung to him, his eyes closed, his hair slightly disheveled after the long evening. I figured he wasn’t only tired, but a little drunk as well from the flask he’d somehow managed to snatch from Serena.
Stay strong, stay fucking strong, I thought, even though I just wanted to break down. “Yeah, man, what’s up?”
“Nance and Serena are looking for you. Said you were gonna give them a ride?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll be there in a sec,” I said, and Steve left.
I turned back to Owen, who looked at a loss for words.
“Owen, I gotta head out right now, but if you need to tell me something, I want to hear it now.” No, it was more than that. “Ideserveto hear it now.”
Even though a part of me didn’t want to hear it.
Even though I just wanted to run off that balcony and flee this whole fucked-up conversation.
I couldn’t tell which was weighing on me more—the need to shout or the need to cry.
But everything about Owen’s attitude suggested where this was leading, and even the word was too much for me to think.
“Keegan, I am in way over my head here. And you snuck up on me when I least expected it, but…”
“You don’t get to end that with abut. And I’m not letting you end this either if you’re too much of a coward to say what you really want. So I’ll do it for you.” I started to say the words but realized myself how hard they were. “This is over. We’re over.”
Oh, fucking God, I was crying. Goddammit.
I wanted him to tell me I was wrong. That I’d misunderstood where he was going with the conversation, but he nodded, his face trembling. “I think that’s for the best.”
In a moment, Prince Owen had slain me.
Keep it together, Keeg. Keep it to-fucking-gether.
We weren’t done yet, no.
And yet, I couldn’t hate him much more than I did in that moment.
To think I loved this man—
No, I couldn’t think about that.
It would be too hard.
It would be too much for me to bear.
God, why was it so fucking hard to breathe?
