I jump up from the couch, unsteady on my feet. “You… when did you start… deluding yourself into believing that you’re in love with me?”
Pain. That stupid pain twists every single inch of his face—again.
“I knew I had feelings for you about…” He sighs defeatedly. “About a month before you came back here. I… I thought it was guilt making me stay near you. Wanting to protect you—”
I scoff, but he continues.
“—but then…” His frame locks, fist clenching, like he’s debating whether to tell me or not.
“What?”
“I-I saw you, okay?” he says quietly, not looking at me. “I saw you with someone on a date and…”
Ezra. He saw me with Ezra.
“…I couldn’t bear to see it. You keep saying that I’ve deluded myself into believing I love you, but Charlotte, I had deluded myself for months… about my feelings being nothing but guilt!”
“It is!” I almost scream, making him flinch.
“It’s not,” he grits out, jaw clenched. But his anger isn’t directed toward me. “It’s absolutely not because guilt made me run around and beg for forgiveness. It made me relentlessly chase you to Craven Ridge while you kept shutting the door in my face.”
He gets up, pacing in the narrow area between the couch and the coffee table. “Guilt, Charlotte,” he says, halting abruptly. “Guilt made me selfish. Entitled to your presence until I could force that forgiveness out of you. But…”
His chest moves with ragged, heavy breaths. Panic washes over his face like he can’t believe he’s voicing any of this. “Butit also allowed me to watch you. Watch over you. It allowed me to open my eyes to the person you are—the woman you were becoming, without any of us weighing you down. I… fell. Slowly. Reluctantly. Eventually it was because of that same fucking guilt that I never actually burdened you with my… my feelings.” He almost spits out the last word like it disgusts him—or it would perhaps disgust me.
“So, no,” he whispers, shoulders sagging. “It isn’t guilt. It’s love. Not the selfish kind. And it’s yours even if you don’t want it.”
I stare at him. My jaw slack with a mix of shock and rage.How dare he?
“Sarah.” I spit out. “Weren’t youwithher? Huh? This whole guilt versus love thing fails with that one single name, asshole!”
He flinches, squeezing his eyes shut. Her name shoves us both into a silence so suffocating and draining that I almost fall back on the couch.
“She was a symptom,” he croaks, voice cracking. “I didn’t think I deserved you, Charlotte. I don’t. How can I?”
The resignation in his voice makes my chest cave in.
He exhales heavily, rubbing his palm over his chest like it hurts. “So… Sarah was it. The meaningless on-and-off cycle was it. That’sallI deserve. Toxicity. Not peace.”
Peace. That word keeps making an appearance.
I shift to look away from the mess of devastation reflecting in his face. It’s not for me. It’s probably for the version of me he thinks he’ll never see—the one who forgives him. But how can I?
How can he be the same man who blindly followed the club and never gave me a chance to prove myself?
The air in my lungs feels sour. Every breath feels like I’m struggling to mend something inside me that keeps breaking apart. My words, my instincts—they’re all failing me.
“Butyoudeserve it.”
I startle, not expecting him to drag out any further words from his mouth. Ones that I’m not sure will make sense of my scattering thoughts, or just decimate them.
“You deserve peace,” he says simply, nodding to himself. “So that’s what I’m focusing on. Your peace.Finding it. Building it. Creating it even if I’m not a part of it. And I know I’m not, Charlotte.” His voice fully breaks, thick with whatever he’s holding back. “I’m not—God! I know that. But I’ll do whatever the fuck to give it to you.”
He looks up, his gaze unfocused. He’s looking around the room helplessly, scanning the sanctuary he built for me. “I’m helpless against this… this instinct. Nothing else makes sense to me.”
His fevered panic stutters when I step closer to him. Eyes struggling to sharpen on me.
“I know I deserve peace. Which is why I left!” I snap, my eyes stinging.
