She moves to turn away, but I call out her name again, desperation coating every syllable, hiding nothing from her. “Please.I just want…” I trail off when she grimaces. “I know. It’s not about me. I get that. I just…I want to explain, to apologize.” It all spills out, every molecule of my being prepared to say anything to get her to stay; to make this moment last a little longer.
“Fine,” Charlie says shortly, crossing her arms. My jacket shifts, threatening to slip down her arms.
This might be my only chance, so I blurt it all out in a rush. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t even blink. I keep going. “I’msorry for what happened at the bar that night, for everything I didn’t do. I shouldn’t have…I shouldneverhave let Bliss talk about you like that.”
Charlie nods, her expression unchanging. She’s never been this hard for me to read, and a cold sweat skates down my spine.
“And what I said the next day?—”
“When you called me soft, weak, and nothing?” she clarifies icily, and my throat works on a swallow.
“Yes.” I rub the back of my neck just for something to do. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I don’t know why I said all that, but I didn’t mean it. I just…”
She nods again, eyes darting away from me, and then back. “Why did you step in tonight?”
I blink, thrown by the question. “What?”
Her eyes flick upward to the house behind me, her hands pulling my jacket back onto her shoulders. I track the movement, satisfaction swelling that I did at least one fucking thing right.
“You’ve never defended me against Bliss before. Or Jack, for that matter. Tonight, you did”—with a pause, Charlie’s eyes coming back to mine—“or tried to. Why?”
An alarm flares in my head. “I don’t understand?—”
“Because to me, it seems like you stepped in becauseMarisawas hurt.” I fall back a step at the venom that fills her voice. “You wouldn’t step in before, but she wasn’t the target then, hm? Tonight, you showed up just when Marisa needed you, and suddenly, you found your voice.”
“No, I’m not here because?—”
“Stop!” Charlie shouts, looking startled at the volume of her own voice. She inhales through her nose before pinning a stern frown on me. “There is nothing you can say that willmake any of this better, or make me believe that you aren’t here for Marisa.”
“I told you,” I protest. “I don’t have feelings for Marisa.”
“And I told you, Dillon, I don’t believe you. Why else would you lie about your history with her?” Charlie’s shoulders drop, her expression falling, like she’s reached the end of her rope. “Dillon…we’re done. We don’t need to do this, okay? I think the best thing that can happen from here is that we just…give each other space.” She pulls my jacket off, stepping forward to drop it into my limp hands. “Goodbye, Dillon.”
It’s permanent. Final. I look down at the fabric, devastation crawling through my body, narrowing my vision to a pinprick.
“I thought you were my person,” Charlie says, voice detached. “Clearly, I was wrong…about that, and about you.” She sighs again, deep and heavy, her stare melancholic. “I learned something from this relationship, and that’s something, I guess.”
“I don’t want this to be over,” I croak out. “Please, Angel, don’t?—”
“Stop, Dillon,” she whispers softly. “Give me space. This…” She shakes her head. “This is exhausting, and I need to be done with it. Okay? I told you before, you can’t unring a bell. And everything you’ve done…everything you’ve said? You can’t just take it back.”
Chapter 16
Dillon
“Last time we talked, you said things escalated quickly with Charlie. I thought we could touch on that today.” My therapist, Sandra Dulles, watches me with a patient expression, her black-framed glasses perched on the edge of her nose.
“Okay,” I say slowly. Reluctantly. I didn’t want to show up for this second session, but Gran pulled a favor with someone she knew to get me in with Sandra so quickly.
I wasn’t about to let Gran down.Not again.
Sandra looks at her tablet when I don’t say anything else, swiping her finger against the screen. “You told me that when things got tense, you said things to Charlie you didn’t actually mean. Can you tell me more about that?”
I prop my elbows on my knees, attention shifting to the half-drawn blinds shielding us from the sunlight streaming through the large window. A minute ticks by on the clock behind Sandra. My focus moves to the shelves lining one wall, covered in thick books with titles that may as well be in another language.
Sandra’s watching me, her head tipped to one side, a stray brown curl resting against her cheek. “Dillon?” she prompts. There’s a beauty mark on her left temple. Whenever I look at her, that’s where I focus, avoiding the assessing look in her eyes. It’s hard not to feel as if she’s judging me. Logically, I know she’s not, but the uncomfortable feeling never quite leaves.
“It wasn’t just things I didn’t mean.” The admission doesn’t sound like it’s coming from me, the voice too rough and unfamiliar.
