Inhaling deep through my nose, I try to shift out from beneath him. The weight of his body above mine is suffocating. There’s a burn behind my eyes that promises a goddamn breakdown if I don’t get off this bed and into a place I can be alone.
But as hard as I smack my hand against Rowe’s chest, he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move back so much as an inch to allow me the space to slip away. I use more pressure this time, but then his arms are sliding over my waist, and we’re rolling. A sharp grey gaze burns into my face as I try to wiggle free of his hold.
“You’re not running off on me again, hellcat.”
“I need space.”
“You don’t need fucking space,” he declares, raising his hand to hold my head in place. His pillow’s pressed beneath my cheek, smelling strongly of his aftershave. “You need someone to hold you like this and make you talk. I want inside the vault again, Tilly.”
I clench my teeth. Our close proximity is distracting me. His palm is warm and steady, and once he uses his thumb to trace the tiny scar I have on the underside of my jaw, I release the breath I’ve been trapping inside.
“You want to hear all of my thoughts until they hurt you. Which they will,” I say.
“I’m not afraid of getting hurt. I’ve suffered plenty in my life.”
“I’m serious. My truth isn’t going to make you feel good.”
Rowe doesn’t retreat. He leans closer, releasing my face and gripping my thigh so he can guide it over his hip. We move impossibly closer. My chest brushes his when I inhale.
“Tell me anyway.”
“You were always Ash’s best friend, but I considered you one of mine too. I was as close to you as I was Lacey, and way more than Shade. Then you were gone, and it was because of me. That truth took me a long time to make peace with. I don’t even know if peace is what I feel now. Whatever it is looks close enough to it that I’ve been able to not hate myself every day.
“Staying in Oak Point was doing nothing more than driving me further into depression. I hated getting out of bed every day for the first month you were gone. The sun was too bright, my parents hovered, and when I was at the ranch, I searched for you in places I knew you wouldn’t be so often that I thought Otis was going to have to fire me himself. I pushed Lacey away and couldn’t be assed to answer my phone when anyone tried to contact me. There were so many days that I just felt like staring at a blank wall in silence was more fulfilling than attempting to interact with society. Therapy would have been great, but I didn’t give enough of a shit about the appointments my mom forced me to go to. It wasn’t until I moved away that I started taking it seriously.”
Rowe’s fingers press harder into my thigh, like they’re trying to fuse themselves to my skin. I let him, having not realized that I’ve done the same to his chest. Right over where I used to imagine his heart racing for me.
“Did the letters make it worse for you?” he asks, his tone heavy.
“No. They helped.”
Until the last one.
“I didn’t know if you were going to be waiting on the other side of the fence when I got out. Ash wouldn’t tell me shit aboutyou when I asked, so I stopped trying. I was so fucking angry, Tilly. At you, but also myself. I had too much rage inside of me, and looking back now, I’m glad you were gone. I’d have dragged you right down with me if you’d been waiting. It wouldn’t have mattered how close we’d gotten. I’d have ruined your life all over again.”
“You never ruined my life. We ruined each other’s lives,” I correct weakly.
He makes a disbelieving noise in his throat. “No. I did what I did because I cared about you. I’ve never regretted that.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
“Do you wanna talk about that letter, Tilly? Because I want to get it out in the open. Locking it all up tight hasn’t done shit to help either of us.”
Rowe keeps his hand on my thigh but somehow manages to push himself up the bed at the same time. He leans against the headboard, expression even, calm. Without the slimmest bit of struggle, he hauls me with him and plants me over his lap. I place a hand on his shoulder and arch my brows.
“I don’t want to rehash what happened. Just don’t lie to me to make me feel better about myself and the thoughts I used to have,” I argue.
“You should have known better than to think I meant a damn word of what I said in that letter. If it had been Lacey in your shoes that day, I can’t swear to you that I’d have done the same thing. I wouldn’t have seen red so thick I thought it would never fade or blocked out the shouts of everyone around us because I was so driven to make Ezra pay for what he’d done. Everything I did that night, I did because of how much you meant to me. The only two people in the world who I would have done that for were andareyou and Ash.”
I can’t look away. Rowe’s hand finds the curve of my waist and holds me steady when my body threatens to topple over. My mouth dries, filling with cotton.
“You told me the opposite to hurt me, then? To push me away?”
“I was young,” he says, as if that’s explanation enough.
And the truth is that it is. Twenty-one issoyoung. Especially when your future looks like four concrete walls and solitude. How am I supposed to blame him for acting out in an attempt to protect himself when protection was the last thing he had?
“So what, you sent that long-lost letter to apologize? Because if so, it won’t fix anything now.”
