I pull my hand away, trying to find a place for it to be that feels normal, but every movement is wrong. Her touch lingers as a reminder of how we used to be. “No, I don’t. Did I do something wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything,” she mumbles.
“Then tell me why.”
“It doesn't matter.”
“Yes, it does—”
“It doesn’t.”
“I want to know.”
“I killed Duke!” she yells, and the words hang in the air. She’s somehow managed to get closer with every sentence and is only inches away from me, leaning over the center console. She swallows, breathing heavy, staring directly at me.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “You did.” I knew that part of the story, but it’s what happened after that I don’t understand. How come she didn’t apologize? Why did she ignore and avoid me?
Her eye contact breaks. “So what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could’ve fixed it.”
“But you didn’t even try.”
“I didn’t want to.”
I can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. How could she say that like I wasn’t worth fighting for? Did she really think that little of me and all we’d been through?
“Why?” I beg.
She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now.”
My frustration builds, annoyed with how evasive she’s being again. I wouldn’t be asking these questions if it didn’t matter. I’d spent countless hours agonizing over these questions. “Why didn’t you try?”
“Can we just talk about something else?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Why is it so hard to answer that question?” My voice rises again. “You want me to stay away from Mallory and I’m cooperating. The least you could do is—”
“I wanted you to hate me.” She says it so quickly I almost miss it. She pulls her legs up to her chest and moves as far over as she can without getting out of the car. “There. Happy?”
“What?” It’s like she just kicked me in the stomach.
“I wanted you to hate me because I knew I’d never be good enough for you.”
My blood runs cold, freezing over and halting any flow to my heart. How could she think that? She’s Emma. She was the only person I was close to growing up. Did she really think one mistake would erase everything we had?
“How could you think that?”
“Because it’s true. I hurt you.”
“Pushing me away hurt me more,” I say. It flows right offmy tongue like I’ve been waiting to say it forever. It was locked and loaded, firing at the first opportunity.
She bites her lip and shakes her head. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it or not, but her eyes seem to be strained. “Come on. We were already drifting apart.”
I think back to my freshman year, and how little we saw each other when we were in separate schools. Was she right? Was our relationship already ruined by that point? “I thought you didn’t want me around.”
“I didn’t know how to handle my mom leaving, and I didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”
