But it hurts like one.
His grip loosens, and after a long pause, he flops back on his heels, staring at me like I’m already gone.
Am I?
What if I’m making a mistake? Alex has been my whole life. My best friend. My first kiss. My almost forever. If I leave now, what does that make me? A coward? A traitor? A girl who wrecked everything over one kiss?
The guilt scrapes at my chest. I want to snatch everything back—the wordssaid, the kiss stolen. Smooth it all over and promise him I’ll try harder. I want to fix it.
God, I always want to fix it.
“It’s me, isn’t it?” He swipes at his face. “You think I’m fucked-up. You think I’m broken.”
My gaze drops to my wrist. To the bruise.
He follows my eyes, as if he studies the evidence long enough, he can erase it. Rewrite the damage. Pretend it never happened.
But it did.
I have to remember that.
“I never said you were broken,” I reply softly.
Alex pulls to his feet, a single tear cutting down his cheek. “But you’re thinking it. You’re giving up on me because you think I’m unfixable.”
“That’s not—”
“Say it, Annalise. Just fucking admit it.”
“No, I…I have to go.” I press my hands to my chest, where my heart beats like a war drum behind bone. “I-I need space. Time to clear my head, to think. To…”
I take a step back.
I’m not sure what tomorrow holds; all I know is that I need to process this relationship, that kiss, my future.
Chase. Alex. Me.
Everything.
More tears pour out of me.
But before I turn away, I watch his face turn to stone. Eyes turn to sleet.
Words turn to bullets.
Alex sniffs. “You always said I changed after that accident.”
I stop in my tracks. My blood freezes.
I blink, watching as a dark mask slips into place.
“I let you think that. Let you believe it. But that’s not the truth,” he says. “The accident didn’t change me—youchanged me. You broke me, Annalise.”
The air in my lungs seizes. For a heartbeat, I believe him. Because that’s what I’ve always done. Shouldered the blame. If I’d been better, calmer, more careful,maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he wouldn’t be so angry. Maybe he wouldn’t lash out.
Maybe we wouldn’t be here.
“You were so damn needy,” he continues, huffing out a mocking breath. “So clingy. So codependent. It wore me down. Turned me into this.”
