“I know! That’s what upsets me so much.” She rubbed her temples and took a deep breath. Her eyes burned, so she squeezed them shut. “We’re stuck, aren’t we? You with your parents, me stuck with you…”
“You with me?” he asked, astonished.
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely, forcing herself to look at him again. His eyes were a shade darker than usual, his gaze fixed on her face. She loved being looked at by him because only he could make her feel trulyseen. But right now, she wished he would turn his back on her because it would make her words so much easier.
“Do you know how much I hated it at Harvard, watching you shrivel under your father’s gaze?” She dug her fingernails into her palms. “How awful it still is for me to know what’s going on inside you while you radiate such cool patience and indifference that it fools everyone — except me? Your father believes you don’t care about what he just said. But I know that’s not true, and it drives me crazy to know there’s a small part of you that shatters every time your dad criticizes you. Literallycrazy, Gareth! Until I can’t think straight and want to do things, want to say things that a smart, empowered woman like me shouldn’t even consider!” She gritted her teeth and fought back the burning in her eyes. “Until your happiness suddenly seems more important than mine, because I’d do anything to make you feel better. Because the consequences are suddenly irrelevant to me, no matter how devastating they might be.”
The sentences tasted bitter on her tongue, but she had to say them. She had to finally be honest with him and herself, even if her panic was eating away at her with every word. Spoken out loud, the reality was so much more frightening. Gareth had too much power over her, always had. He didn’t exploit it, but she still felt it — in everything she did and wanted to do.
Gareth was still staring at her, slowly tilting his head, as if trying to understand her words…until he apparently concluded that he didn’t. “What are you talking about?”
Hazel swallowed and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Of course, he had no idea. And maybe she should letsleeping dogs lie. After all, they’d agreed to let the past be the past, but the bitch kept intruding.
“Hazel, you don’t have to worry about my mental state,” he said urgently, stepping closer to her and gently tucking her hair behind her ears.
“But I do,” she softly choked out. “And as long as we’re together, I won’t be able to stop. I can’t stop myself from wanting to do everything I can to make you happy — and forgetting to think about myself in the process. I’ll always come up short, Gareth! And I’ll be the only one who suffers if it gets out that we’re sleeping together. Just like I was the only one who had to suffer the stupid looks and comments of others back then. You won’t have to hear people calling you a whore, and you never had to hear people say that you’re only with me out of pity. Your career will survive this little scandal, while mine will probably end in tatters! And yet, even knowing this, I would adjust my goals for you, just to make you happier. And that scares me so much, Gareth, that I don’t know if this can work for us. At least, it didn’t work for me back then!”
“What?” Gareth asked hollowly, abruptly dropping his hand from her cheek. “I don’t want you to give up your goals, Hazel! And who the hell told you I was only with you out of pity back then? Shit, I know it didn’t work for us. I was there when you told me you needed to focus on your studies, that I was too distracting. I get it.”
She closed her eyes. “That’s not entirely true, Gareth.”
“How is itnot entirely true?” His volume increased. “What the hell were you just talking about? I don’t want you to forget to think about yourself, I…”
“But I did, Gareth!” she snapped. Her voice trembled and her stomach lurched, but she owed it to him to be honest. She didn’t want to repeat any mistakes. She couldn’t go back, only forward.“I didn’t want to hurt you back then, so I used school as an excuse, understand?”
“No,” he said harshly. “I don’t understand anything anymore!”
Shit, yeah, maybe he wouldn’t. Faint despair crept up inside her, but she’d already begun telling him… “I couldn’t put all my eggs in one basket,” she whispered, choked. “Onyou. I stopped building my life around my goals of being successful and the best at my job — but built it around you. I became weak. For you. With you. Because of you. When we were together, my goal was suddenly no longer my success and a safe path out of poverty, to finally repay my mother for everything she gave up for me, but…my goal was you.” She swallowed hard. “You and your happiness were suddenly my goals! But I had no guarantee that you would always be there. You could have abruptly left me one day; you weren’t a safe bet! And yet I’d worked so hard my whole life to get a degree that would finally promise me and Mom security — and I would have given it all up for you, to make you happy.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Hazel?” Gareth dug both hands into his hair and looked at her desperately. “Of course you could have relied on me! Of course you could have. I would have guaranteed it, if you’d asked. I was so in love with you, I would have done anything for you!”
“And I would have done anything for you, Gareth,” she whispered in a thin voice. “And that was the damn problem. My mom threw away half her life and I shed blood, sweat, and tears to get the best degree so I could provide a good future for us both. I gave my best every day…and then I hooked up with you and suddenly, I deliberately wanted to do worse!”
“Do worse? Worse at what?”
“On the state exam!” she snapped loudly. “The exam that would have determined my future!”
He blinked at her, completely uncomprehending. “I don’t understand…”
“Yeah, I didn’t understand either. I was the girl from the ghetto and you were the privileged guy from Beverly Hills — and I loved you so much that I still wanted to give you the advantage. Even though, unlike me, you already hadallthe advantages. And…I couldn’t, Gare!” She spoke louder and louder, her frantic heartbeat pounding in her ears. “It scared me so damn much! I fought so hard to get into an Ivy League school to turn my life around and provide a better life for my mother. And then you were there, and I wanted to break my promise and stop giving my best just because I knew how much you were hurting. Gareth, I knew you so well. I’ve forgotten more things about you than I ever discovered about myself. And Iknewyou’d spend the rest of your life hearing that you were second to me, and you’d be incredibly upset about it. I did better than you on exams, so I wanted to do worse to make your life easier. I was willing to finish in the middle of the pack – because coming in second would have been too risky – just because I loved you so damn much. And that couldn’thappen, Gare. You had too much power over me, and that scared me. Shit, no one expected you to spend more than a few months with me! You could have decided at any moment that I wasn’t living up to your standards and dumped me! I couldn’t prioritize your happiness over mine. Not even just in my mind!”
Her voice echoed through the empty hallway and shattering silence chased it. Nothing remained but the hollow past between them.
Gareth stared at her. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been the one who had screamed, and his gaze slid over her face to her clasped hands. Finally, he shook his head, barely perceptibly. “I never asked you to prioritize my happiness over yours — and I wouldn’t have let you down.”
“You can’t know that!”
“Yes, I can,” he said quietly, taking a step toward her so that his scent enveloped her. “Because it’s been seven years, and I still haven’t let you go. Even though you’ve given me a hundred thousand reasons to. You’re the only woman I’ve thought about nonstop for years, the one who ruins every relationship I’ve had without even trying. You’re the only one I want, even in the moments when you hate me. God, I want you even when I hate you a little. You’re making my life so damn hard, Hazel, but I don’t want it to be easy if it means being without you.”
His words pierced her skin like tattoo needles, leaving no color, just feelings. Feelings and warmth, longing, and desire. Gareth had always been good at that, at making her feel.
“See?” she whispered, hating that her voice broke. “How could I have broken up with you if you had said things like that to me? I couldn’t explain it to you back then. I knew you wouldn’t accept it. You would have told me to fucking destroy you in the exams, like I’d done the rest of the semester. That it would make you proud, or whatever. But I was so afraid that it would have been just the beginning. Because I would have moved to L.A. with you, even though the better job opportunities for me were in New York. I would have been content to spend the rest of my life in your shadow, to be nothing more than the girlfriend or wife of the famous Gareth Clark, even though it was always my goal to earn the respect I deserved. But everyone would have said I was only successful because you were by my side. They would have said what your father said — that I slept my way up the corporate ladder. I would have been labeled a gold digger and never had anything of my own. I would have given up too much for you. I would have adjusted my goals for you — and I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow myself to do that. So I told you that things weren’t working out between us, thatwe were too different. That you were distracting me from the important things in life…”
“I remember,” he replied stonily.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked bitterly. “Even though you said it wasokay?”
Gareth narrowed his eyes and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers. “What do you want to hear from me, Hazel? It was your decision.”
