“Come on, it will be good to get out of Lanceleaf for a little while. Clear our heads. Get away—”
“You mean run away.”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“I’ll call it what it is because that’s what you’re doing. It’s what you’re good at. Avoiding the truth. Running from your problems.” I roll my shoulders back. “What are you running from, Dean? You can run all you want, but you can’t run from yourself.”
“And staying here will fix everything?”
“Not everything, no. But my family—”
“When are you going to stop trying to make everyone else happy, Willa? You’re so damn busy keeping them together that you refuse to face when you’re falling apart.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I shake my head, refusing to look at Dean now because his eyes still hold so much hope.
Hope I used to share, and now I’m just cold. I wrap my arms around myself, but I’m a ghost of who I was a year ago. A fragment of who I was a week ago. And so is Dean.
We’ve both lost too much, and there’s nothing good for him here anymore, not even me.
If I ask him to stay, he will—for me. It bleeds from his eyes. But Tate will make him regret it, and my dad will never accept me being with him, so I give him the push he needs.
“You should go on that trip to California.” My voice is so empty I don’t recognize it. “There’s nothing holding you here anymore.”
“Willa, you know that’s not true.”
“I thought about what you asked me after graduation—if we could be anything more.” It already feels like a lifetime ago when we were sitting on those bleachers. “We can’t. I don’t feel that way about you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You said—”
“I lied.” I turn to face him, schooling my expression. “Or I was confused. But I can’t force what isn’t there. You’re a good friend, but we don’t work, Dean. Me and Kincaid, we make sense.”
“Don’t fucking say that.”
“He’s the one I need.” I’ve never told a bigger lie.
These are the nails in the coffin, and if I don’t seal it now, Dean will never escape this purgatory we’re living in.
“Why are you doing this?” Hurt bleeds in his tone.
It pours from his eyes.
Hope dies.
“I don’t love you. I can’t. Your brother has it together, and you’re just…”
“Chaos.” He barely whispers it, and I nod my head.
“We had fun.” I frown. “Getting into trouble is always fun for a little while. But it’s time for me to grow up. My family needs me. Eden needs me. I don’t have the luxury of being selfish.”
“Which is what I am, right?”
I shrug, glancing away. “I wouldn’t really know, and I doubt you do either when you refuse to face anything.”
I look through the window again, and I swear Mom’s head has moved slightly. Like she’s turned it toward me, casting me with her judgment from the other side.
“Please don’t do this, Willa.”
“Go, Dean.” I step back when he reaches for me, not looking at him. “I don’t want this. I never did, and I never will.”
