“I want us to keep seeing each other,” I say. “The pregnancy, yes, would’ve guaranteed that, but I don’t need it as an excuse. I want to be with you.”
“You only said you loved me after I told you I was pregnant.”
Frustration clogs my throat. What the fuck am I doing wrong here? Iloveher. What more am I supposed to do to convince her?
My hands clench, and I have to slowly loosen my fingers before I break them. “I already told you I was planning on telling you before that.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t.”
“So you think I…” My voice shakes. “You think I’m fucking lying to you? Saying I love you when I don’t mean it?”
“I think you feel bad that I lost the baby. I think you were trying to do the right thing when you said it.”
I’m incredulous. “Really. I told you I loved you because it was theright thing.”
“I don’t know, Wyatt.” Her eyes get shiny, and when she blinks, a few tears spill out.
My eyes are stinging pretty badly themselves, and I don’t have hormones to blame for it. Only the panic of seeing her slipping away from me. And the disbelief and…yes, maybe some anger over the accusation that my “I love you” was nothing but lip service.
For the first time in my life, I fully opened my heart to someone, and she thinks it was fake.
“I think we need to stick to our rules,” she says dully. “If one of us wants to stop, we stop. Isn’t that what you said? No questions asked, no explanations required, remember?”
“Screw the rules,” I burst out, the panic rising again. “You can’t walk away from this. You love me. I know you do. I fucking feel it.”
She scrubs her hands over her tear-streaked cheeks. “I don’t know where my head is right now. I burst into tears every five seconds. My emotions are all over the place. I just need to go back to Briar and focus on graduating and figuring out what to do with my life.”
“I can help you figure it out.”
“I don’t want your help. I don’t want…”
“Me,” I finish, my tone flat. “You don’t want me.”
“This is for the best, Wyatt. It was always going to end. Fucking always. It wasn’t going to work long-distance.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Just stop. Please.” She’s crying again, wearing that same helpless look she gave me in the hospital. As if she can’t make sense of her own world. “I’m not pregnant anymore. You’re off the hook.”
“It wasn’t a hook,” I say hoarsely.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.” I run both hands through my hair. Now we’re both agitated. “Please don’t do this. Don’t leave.”
A knock sounds on the half-open door as Grace peers inside. “Everything all right in here?” I don’t miss the compassion in her eyes when she sees my face.
Blake turns her back to both the door and me, going to the closet to get more dresses.
“I’m almost done packing,” she tells her mother, even as the tears continue to stream down her cheeks. “And Wyatt was just leaving.”
Pain rips into me. She doesn’t want me here. She doesn’t want me anywhere.
As I walk to the door, my whole body feels weak. Like I’ve just been beaten within an inch of my life. Everything aches, and I canbarely see through the sheen of emotion obscuring my vision.
Before we even kissed, I told her I was going to break her heart.
Joke’s on me.
