It would be so easy to blurt out everything I’m feeling. To turn my heart inside out and dump it all in his lap, to get it all out there in the open.
But I can’t, not until I know for sure how he feels. It’s a good start; there is mutual attraction. We can flirt and have moments. There’s chemistry. But unless I’m convinced Spencer Laz has true feelings for me, everything is going to stay locked up tight.
“I’m here for you,” he says with frustration. “I don’t know how many times I can tell you that.”
“You’re here for me now but—”
“Now is what matters,” he insists. “I’ve known you my whole life, and it’s time we decide if there’s a future for us. I’ve alwaysthought of you as mine, and maybe that’s not the right thing to say, but that’s how I feel. I’m a part of your family, but it’s always been different with you. You’re mine.”
“Because I’ll help you really become part of the family?”
Spencer takes a step back. “Don’t say that. You feel it too. You always have.”
I have. It’s on the tip of my tongue to admit it, to agree with everything Spencer is saying, but one thing—one little thing—holds me back.
“How did you breakup with Abigail?” The question comes out harsher than expected.
“How?”
“Yeah,how? Did you tell her you wanted me, that it was over between the two of you? Or was it her? Did she end it? Probably because you couldn’t hide this recent confusion you’re going through.”
“Lyra…”
“Spencer.” I grip the edge of the table because I know. I know without him agreeing, and it hurts. He didn’t pick me over Abigail.
And he knows I know. “It wasn’t like that,” he begins.
“I don’t care,” I say, as calmly as if I was born a princess and educated in hiding my emotions.
Because I have been.
“The truth is, you have never picked me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. But you know what? Every one of those men over there, and the rest of them back at the hotel? They pick me. They want me. And maybe they don’t have the history anddoesheorwill hethat we have, but they do know who they want. They don’t have to figure anything out.” I take a deep breath. “They want me. No side clauses or addendums, no confusion because they thought themselves in love with someone else and then got freaked out because their toy was going to be taken away.”
“You’re not my toy.”
“No? Then why have you been playing with me for years like I was?”
And then I walk away from him.
25
Spencer
T
hatwas—shesaid…
Lyra thinks I’ve been playing with her? That nothing means anything, that I—
That was harsh.
It’s also true.
I don’t need self-reflection or internal monologues to realize right then and there that Lyra is right about everything.
