“Then why are you here?”
He moves farther into the room, and the light from outside fully illuminates his tortured expression.
Outside, another bolt of lightning shoots across the sky seconds before booming thunder rattles the paper-thin walls.
“I haven’t been in this room since two weeks after you left,” he says softly.
“After?”
He nods.
There was a time when Zane would sneak over and tap on my window. I’d let him in, and he’d bring me food. We’d sit on my floor and eat together while my dad slept off the alcohol in the living room.
One night when we were eighteen, Zane fell asleep beside me on the floor. That’s all it was—innocent sleeping after a night of staying up, talking about the future we both wanted to have—but my dad stormed in and threatened to kill him. That was the night I knew I had to leave. Because, while I could take the beatings, I couldn’t stomach Zane getting hurt.
I still can’t.
I’d been a coward, though, and stayed until he nearly killed me. Zane came to my rescue then, too, and begged me to leave this life. So, I finally did.
“I broke in while your dad was passed out so I could look for any sign of you. I knew he’d hurt you. There was no evidence, but I felt it in my gut. I wasn’t sure that I’d find you alive, but I’d hoped.” His gaze shifts to me. “I guess I was right.”
The pain in his gaze is so fresh.
The ache in my heart has been multiplying with every second. “I guess so.”
He shifts his attention away from me. “Why did you come here?”
It’s a strange question, given all the others he could ask. Why did I leave? Why did I sneak out of the hospital? Why did I kick him out of my room?
And every single one of those answers is the same. Because I loved him too much to let him see me broken. So I guess it’s a good thing he avoided those. I’m sure I don’t have the strength to tell him the truth, and I don’t want to lie anymore.
Not to Zane. Not if I can help it.
Clearing my throat, I force my attention away from him. “I needed to prove to myself that this place is nothing.”
“And?”
I limp forward and lift a dust-covered stuffed animal from the shelf. It’s a white rabbit, won for me by the man standing just behind me at one of the shoreside carnivals. “There’s nothing for me here.” Even though I want to do the exact opposite, I toss the rabbit onto the bed.
He can’t know how broken I am.
He can’t see my pain.
Because I believe that, even after everything I’ve done to him, Zane Knox is still a man who would wrap me up in a safety blanket and protect me from the world. And with my track record, that might just cost him his life.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” I turn toward him.
“Pretend you don’t care at all? What did I do to make you hate me?”
You loved me more than anyone else in my life ever has.
“What makes you think I hate you?”
“The way you’re acting,” he replies. “You look at me as though you can’t wait to be rid of me, all while I’m still reeling over the fact that you’re alive.”
Tears burn in the corners of my eyes as I force my gaze away from him.
