“Do you hate being back, then? Do you hate that your parents wanted you to come home?”
He shook his head and leaned back against the kitchen counter, his arms already folded over his chest. “No, it was time.” He tore his gaze from mine and stared down at his feet. “When I left I felt like there was nothing left for me here. Logan was gone. I thought… I thought you were gone. I just, I didn’t want to come home and feel empty.”
My heart skipped a beat, leaving me flailing to catch up. “And now?”
His gaze lifted, and his brilliant green eyes hit me from all the way across the apartment. “And now I know the life I wanted was waiting for me here all along.”
God, I could resonate with that. I felt those words in the deepest, most centered part of me. I knew what it was like to assume everything I wanted was out there, out in the world. And yet this whole time, it had been here all along.
“I’m sorry I slept with Logan,” I blurted, unable to keep the words inside of me for one more second. “I’m so sorry.”
“Ruby—”
I hiccupped a sob as the tears started streaming down my face. Damn, Fireball, you done me wrong.
“No, listen,” I demanded. “I was afraid, Levi. I’ve always been afraid of what I felt for you. I wanted out of this town so damn bad, that it clouded everything for me. And in my stupid, immature mind, I thought sleeping with him would be enough to break whatever was between us for good. I didn’t even know whatthatwas. I never intended to hurt you or to have Max. I just wanted… I just wanted to leave. And it was the only way I knew how.”
He stared at me, unspeaking, unmoving. The hurt in his eyes and the frown on his face devastated my already broken spirit.
“And I don’t even know what to tell you,” I cried some more. “Because my mistake led me to Max and for that reason I can never really regret it. But I hate how I hurt you. I hate that my mistakes meant pushing you away. I hate that I finally know how I feel about you and it’s too late.”
His eyes flashed with something so intense I gasped for breath. “How do you feel about me?”
How could he ask me that now? How did he not know? How had he not always known?
“Don’t make me say it,” I whispered, my voice dragged over gravel. “It hurts too much.”
“Ruby,” he pleaded, his voice just as fragmented. “Say it. Please.”
I didn’t bother brushing away the tears, there were too many of them, my grief was too heavy. “I love you,” I whispered. “I’ve always loved you. I’ve just been too afraid to say it.”
To admit it.
He stared at me, his gaze heating and sparking and bursting to life. I couldn’t move. I was one hundred percent captivated by the way he looked at me and the frenetic energy in the room.
My boots were pooling water all over his floor and somehow in the last few minutes I’d stopped shivering. I should go. I knew I should go, but I couldn’t make myself move.
I wanted to stand there forever if it meant he would continue to look at me like this.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that? How many different ways I imagined you saying those words?” He didn’t sound any less pissed and I couldn’t tell if he was going to forgive me or strangle me. “God, knowing you slept with Logan on graduation night…Do you know what that has done to me?”
I nodded, but barely. I could hardly manage even that. “I know and I’m sorry—”
“It destroyed me, Ruby. You destroyed me.”
The tears fell faster. I wrapped my hands around my body to shield me from his painful truth.
“I can’t even be mad at Logan because he’s gone! And I love Max too fucking much to hate you for it. It’s messed me up in a serious way.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant, exactly how he felt.
Breaking his gaze with me, he ran his hands through his hair and made a tortured sound in the back of his throat. When he looked back at me, his eyes were blazing, the intensity in them stealing the breath from my body. “And you? What am I supposed to do with you? I loved you in high school. And not the way you fucking loved Logan. I actually loved you. You were so helpless and yet, so relentlessly tough. When we were kids, I had never met anyone as wild as you, as tenacious. And yet so contained at the same time, so utterly self-possessed. You fascinated me. I just wanted to get to know you, be near you. And as we grew up, those feelings only ever got more intense.
“You became this gorgeous, untouchable fantasy—but more than that. Because I liked who you were as a person too. There was more to us than simple attraction. I liked that you didn’t play games or give into the politics of this town. I liked how you never tolerated bullshit and always gave it to me straight. I liked how you were reserved, sometimes shy, but you never held back at the same time. The way you laughed when you didn’t think anyone was looking. The way you smiled when you walked away from me. The way you said things you meant to keep secret and then threw insults to cover up your real feelings. You didn’t worship me like the rest of the town, as dumb as it sounds now. You saw me. Just as I was.
“And yeah, maybe we were awful to each other, but we were also sweet. I’ve never not been able to look out for you. I’ve never been able to resist the pull that’s between us. Because Ruby, it’s always been so fucking electric. And damn, it’s never gone away. And now I see you like this… This amazing mom and provider. You work hard every day to take care of your son and you’ve raised him to be this awesome kid. I see you struggling and fighting and doing your best and you… you made me fall in love with you all over again the second I stepped back in this fucking town.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t be more heartbroken, he annihilated whatever was left of my heart with those words. He ripped apart the fragile bandage I’d wrapped my heart in and crushed it with his impossible feelings.
