That makes them go crazy for him, fall in love with him even though they know that he’ll always end up breaking their hearts.
His gorgeous features are blank so I have no clue what he’s thinking right now and it’s not my business to figure it out either and so I keep going. “And that’s why I think it’s better if… if you stay away from me.”
At this, he says something even though his features are still unreadable. “You want me to stay away from you.”
I nod.
It’s more of a jerk than a smooth motion. “Yes, I do. Aside from what I just said, my brothers will lose it. They will kill you for going near me. And —”
“I can handle them,” he says. “Haven’t I told you this before?”
I grit my teeth and purposefully stop my breaths.
I refuse to breathe.
Refuse to take air into my lungs and give life to my body, give beats to my heart.
All these years later, his cavalier attitude still gets me. His reckless, cavalier, daredevil attitude.
God, Callie. You idiot.
“Even so. I don’t think we have anything to say to each other after what happened.”
“You mean how you stupidly fell in love with me and I broke your little heart.”
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
What he just said.
The wound inside my chest shouldn’t flare up and pulsate as if it’s new, freshly inflicted. But it does.
Maybe because he said it without flinching.
Maybe because he can talk about breaking my heart as if it’s so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a change of tone or a ripple in his features.
And maybe that’s why my eyes sting. “Yes. So unless you’re trying to use me again, I suggest you leave.”
“I’m not trying to use you,” he says, studying my face. “You don’t have anything that I need.”
I want to laugh at myself then.
I want to laugh at my own stupid self that his statement made me flinch. That the fact that I’m now useless to him makes something contract in my chest.
“Well then, there you go,” I say with clenched fists. “I’m useless to you. So staying away shouldn’t be so hard, right? I don’t have anything you need and I don’t want you around either. Besides, you don’t even live here anymore, do you? You live in New York and I’ve heard it’s amazing. I mean, my brothers are crazy about that city. I bet you have a wonderful life at college. I bet you have great friends. People must be crazy about your soccer skills and you must be the campus stud and soccer superstar or whatever. So what are you even doing here, wasting your time? Who cares what bus I take or how I get to my studio? I really think you should leave and resume your awesome life and —”
“That’s different,” he says, cutting me off.
“What?”
He motions with his jaw, his gaze dipping down to my lips. “Your lipstick.”
My hand goes up and I touch my lips.
It’s so bizarre that he noticed. So strange and unexpected, his observation and his interruption, that all I can do is say, “Uh, yeah.”
His eyes come up. “So?”
“So what?”
