“I know.”
No matter how hard I try, I know that I can’t, and it wounds something deep inside of me every time I walk through the door to this house.
To not be sure if he’ll still be with me when I come in.
I want to be enough of a reason.
Though, I know that I’ll never be.
No one person evershould be.
“You can’tpatch this,” he whispers.
“I know,” I murmur back.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I press my lips to his forehead to hide the way my eyes flood.
“Then why?” he asks quietly, and its shaky. So damn shaky that I squeeze my eyes tighter.
Because I love you, Emmett.
The words … the three little words I feel branded into my soul burn hot on my tongue and I swallow hard against them.
They’ve sat there for a while. Too long, if I must admit. But I can’t say them.
My heart can’t take him not saying them back.
There’s no part of me that would trust him if he did.
So, I’ll let him kick me and tell me he hates me until he’s got enough strength to maybe one day feel like being loved is a possibility. That he’s worthy of it, even now, as he always has been.
Then maybe he’ll recognize that I’ve loved him all along.
And maybe … maybe then, I’ll be enough.
“Why?” I repeat to him, my throat thick. “Hope.”
Hope that you’ll live long enough to see it.
That you’ll know you’re deserving.
That one day, you might feel the same way I do.
I lean back to catch his sweet honey eyes even though I know it’ll hurt me to see what’s held in them and repeat it so he can see how much I mean it.
Hope.
The way he stares back at me, with so much swimming in those sweet goddamn eyes of his—so haunted and broken—makes me feel like he’ll never truly understand any of it.
I might be just unstable enough to believe I can wait him out.
Chapter 65
Tristen
“He came outside lastnight.”
My head whips so fast in my best friend’s direction that my neck cracks. “He did?”
