“It’s okay.” Self-deprecating laughter left him. “Hell…I always wanted more than I was given.”
“No…” I shook my head. His words were like a knife twisting in my heart. I couldn’t do this—I just couldn’t. Without Jack, not only would my life be an abyss of pain and emptiness, worse, I would destroy the man I loved. AndthatI refused to do. I’d have to find a way to tell my parents the truth. And pray Jack would forgive me. “Jack, stop, please. Let me explain—”
“What? So you can reiterate just how much I don’t meet your high standards?” Cold anger flooded his tone. His cell rang. He yanked it out of his pocket. His jaw hardened, then he hurled his ringing cell. It crashed into the building wall behind me, shattering and falling to the asphalt in pieces.
“Jack!” I gasped. People passing gave us a wide berth.
“That was Margo.” He cut me a grim smile. “The person you allowed to win, to make me dance to her tune. I’d rather another wipeout take me down!” He strode off.
“No-no—” Oh, God. I’d made a mess of everything.
And remembering his pain as he told me about his life, my tears fell.Iwas the idiot who’d hurt him, not Margo.Ihad let her control me. I’d let fear and my independent nature drive me to this stupid decision. Dashing at my wet face, I took off after Jack, feeling as if layers of my soul had been ripped away. I had to fix this, I just had to.
JACK
With no idea where I was going, and my entire world collapsing around me, I stormed the sidewalk, then banked left into a busy street. People evaded me. I only knew I wanted this unending agony to stop, and Ray’s words reverberating inside my skull to leave. If she loved me, even a little, I would have moved mountains for her. But I’d deluded myself into believing that she did. Ray cared about everyone but me it seemed—Christ!
Maybe Margo was right. I was bad blood. Why did I ever think I could keep anything good in my life?
“Jack, wait!”
Hell, imagining her voice must be a dream, a mirage like everything in my life. The things I yearned for most were dangled enticingly in front of me, before being snatched away.
The thought of going home had my stomach roiling. There were just too many fucking memories there. Pops would ask questions I didn’t want to answer. Breathing hard, I halted in the middle of the sidewalk, wishing there was a way to end this pain—
Someone slammed into my back, and I stumbled a step. Arms slid to my front, holding on like a vise. The scent of apples and sunshine wrapped around me, causing more agonizing spasms to shoot through me. I wanted to hold her, never let her go. Instead, I grabbed her hands and pulled them off my chest and spun around, anger warring with pain. Doubtless, she wasn’t done with her decimation of me.
“What do you want?” I snapped. “To thrust the knife in deeper and see me bleed more? Go ahead, take a look.” I held out my arms wide open. “You did a bang-up job of it already. Hell, you’re better than Margo in your aim to destroy. But at least I was good for a few fucks, right?” I had no idea why I’d said it. Maybe because I was hurting so damn much. When what I longed to say was:I never knew what love was, but with you, I thought I’d found a miracle, and we were headed for something amazing.But that was just fucking pitiful. I’d stopped being that pathetic asshole years ago, the one begging for crumbs of affection.
“No-no—” she choked out, eyes brimming with tears. “I’m so sorry. I tried to do it, to let you go, but I-I can’t.”
Cynical laughter escaped me. “I’m supposed to believe this? Not minutes ago,youtold me to fuck off. You took what I felt for you and tore it apart,” I bit out, too furious to care. With anguish gutting me, I couldn’t seem to stop. “My entire life has been one of pain. Living with a dislike so profound I never felt good enough for anyone. Yes, Pops loves me, but it’s hard to trust in an emotion that can so easily be taken away. Yet I let myself do so with you, only to be proven right—”
“Oh, God, please don’t say that…” Her tears fell. “I didn’t mean any of it. I-I didn’t want to hurt you, and I’m truly sorry I did, but I didn’t know what else to do. I got trapped in a disaster of my own making, a-a-and because I f-fell in love with you…”
I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t trust myself not to pull her close and pretend that the shit that had just exploded over me was some fucked-up nightmare.
She sniffed and wiped at her wet cheeks with her fist. “I didn’t mean any of it. Forgive me. I handled everything poorly.”
Christ. I scrubbed my face, fighting back my anger and hurt. Did I so badly long for someone to accept me unconditionally that I’d mistaken the scraps of affection she offered for love?
“Do you know what my childhood—my growing up years—were like, Ray?” I demanded.
“I saw,” she whispered.
“You saw a fragment of the shit I went through daily until I was eighteen. Families are supposed to love their kids unconditionally, it’s what they do, no matter how many times you screw up. Right? Except, my only mistake was not being born a Blackstone. And I paid for it every single day of my fucking life, forced to watch from a distance while the family showered my sister with affection. I didn’t understand what I had done. I’d thought maybe something was wrong with me, but I was only six years old. What the fuck did I know? And the irony is, I tried. I tried really fucking hard to get Grandmother to accept me.
“But I learned to cover up my hurt and loneliness. Walled off my emotions. And I got by. Then Pops had his attack, and those shields rattled. You stepped into my life, and you completed their collapse. And I fell hard. You were different. You cared. Or so I thought—”
“I do, Jack, I do, so much…” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I don’t blame you for hating me. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, telling you what I did. But at the thought of what could happen…”
I didn’t respond. My longing for her consumed me, but the old fear inside that insisted this was just another ruse took hold. Ray flung her arms around me and burrowed her wet face into my chest, holding on tightly as if to keep me there. A sob shook her body.
It wrenched me, damn hard.
When my girl was hurting, no matter my anguish, I just wanted to take away her pain. I’d probably always be a fool for her.Exhaling harshly, I finally put my arms around her.
“I’m so sorry, Jack…” she whispered, her voice muffled against my shirt. “When you walked away, the thought that I’d never see you again, it was as if I couldn’t breathe…”
