Thirty-one
Nate
Between running down the block and finding our Uber and checking into a motel, it takes thirty minutes before Becca and I can finally sit down together and relax. She’s still wearing her gown and limping along without a shoe, and we’ve left with nothing except my wallet and phone, but it feels so good to be out from under the eye of the cameras—which we lost sometime after we got into the Uber, Levi having thankfully failed to prepare for a slow-speed chase through the streets of Sicily.
Becca collapses onto the bed, groaning.
As near as I can tell, we’re on the other side of the city from the hotel where the show is camped, though I know we’re going to have to go back there eventually, not in the least because we left behind our passports. But it’s nice to have a small reprieve—a place to breathe and regroup and figure out what the hell just happened.
Becca looks up at me and smiles weakly. “We really just did that. We ran off together.”
I smile back. “I wish we’d done that a long time ago.”
Becca rests the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Me too!” She groans again, and I settle onto the bed next to her and reach for her hand.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I mean, I’m not injured from having a glass shoe thrown at me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Are you okay?”
She looks up at me, and there’s hesitation in her eyes. “I really do love you. So much. I meant that.”
“I love you, too.” Like I was when we ran away together, I’m surprised at how easily the words come. I’m in love with Becca. It’s been true for a long time, and it’s still true, after everything.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you,” Becca says. “That’s obviously an issue I have, but it was never about you, not really. I let my fear and my doubts and all my issues get the better of me, and I obviously handled this in the worst way possible. But if you’ll give me another chance, I swear I’ll work on it. I’ll talk about it in therapy, and if you want to take things slow until you can be sure that I won’t run again—”
“Is that what you want?” I probably shouldn’t have interrupted her, but the idea of taking things slow is agonizing. I’ll do it, if it’s what she needs, but—
“No,” she says. “But I really don’t deserve for you to—”
“I don’t want that, either. I’m in this, Becks. Completely.”
Tears form in her eyes, and I pull her into my arms and kiss her softly, then rest my forehead against hers. “If you need time before you can trust me, you’ve got it,” I tell her. “Take however long you need, but please, just give me a chance. I swear, I won’t give you any more reasons to doubt.”
Becca kisses me again, and we hold each other tightly, like we’re both afraid if we let go, the other person is going to slip away again.
“You don’t need to prove anything,” she says. “If anyone does, it’s me. I’m so sorry, Nate.” She burrows into me and I nod against her hair. I see it so much more clearly now that I’m not racked with all the pain and bitterness—maybe I wouldn’t have done what she did, not in that way, but I don’t have the same scars, the same wreckage from the past. She did some hurtful things, but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me or that she’s not the same Becca I fell in love with. It never did.
And really, there’s blame to go around.
“I’m sorry, too.” I take a deep breath. “It was my job to manipulate you, and while I kept telling myself I was going to protect you from the ways they were trying to exploit you, in the end I couldn’t. I just became part of it instead, even though I didn’t want to. I should have quit a long time ago, but I knew if I did, I’d never see you again.”
“I know what you mean,” she says. “I wasn’t into Preston. I kept trying to convince myself I had all these reasons I needed to stay, but really, the thought of leaving you was unbearable.”
Oh my god. We trapped each other there. Looking back, it’s all too obvious what we each should have done, but at the time, neither of us had enough foresight to do it.
“It’ll be okay, now,” I say. Even though I’m still terrified, I’m going to fight like hell to make that true.
“Will it, though? What’s going to happen when we go home?”
“I want to be with you.”
She lays her head on my shoulder, breathing softly against my neck. “Me too. But the show. What are they going to do?”
Shit, the show. We’ve escaped them for the moment, but not forever.
“You still have to honor your non-disclosure agreement,” I say. “Which means we can’t be seen together, at least not after the show starts and people know who you are.”
