“Don’t give me that crap! Something changed.”
“Yeah. He did. After he came back senior year, he was different.”
“Of course he was different. People evolve. They grow up. I mean, come on. Losing his parents at a young age, only to lose his grandparents a few years later? That would fuck most people up. Now answer my question.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I really want to know!”
“Fine.” My hands are trembling, so I set my cup down on the coffee table. “We were each other’s first kiss.”
Logan blinks at me in surprise. “What? When?”
“In the treehouse, when we were twelve.” I cross my arms over my chest. “It happened a few days before his parents died.”
“Wow. Okay.”
“And then he left without saying goodbye.”
“Lizzy, you know he didn’t have a choice?—”
“I know!” I snap. “You remember how long it took me to get over it. But then he wouldn’t talk to me….” I turn to face him fully. “Not once in all those years and all those phone calls with you did he ever ask to speak to me.”
A sad expression shadows his face. “I remember.”
“And then when he came back senior year, all those feelings I had for him came rushing back, times freaking ten.”
The last thing I’m going to tell my brother is how our first conversation actually went. How different Rowan was with me during our first real interaction we’d had in five years. I’m pretty sure he tried apologizing, but at the time I wasn’t having it.
“When I pushed him away because I was hurt, instead of fighting for us, he just… avoided me. Would barely talk to me.”
My brother’s expression shifts, guilt flashing in his eyes before looking away.
“What?” I ask, suspicion taking over.
He clears his throat. “About that...”
“Logan...”
“I may have told him to stay away from you.”
“Youwhat?! Why?”
“I told him to keep his distance,” he admits, having the decency to look ashamed. “I knew all about his reputation—all the girls he’d bragged about screwing while he was in Ireland. So when I remembered how devastated you were after he left the first time—how much shit you put yourself through over him? I wanted to protect you from having to go through that again.”
Resentment builds in my chest as I glare at my brother. “You had no fucking right.”
“Lizzy—”
Headache forgotten, I allow my anger to take over. “Who the hell do you think you are? You didn’t just keep me in the dark about Rowan leaving early after graduation—you actively tried to control how he acted around me! That wasn’t your choice to make!”
Logan rises to his feet, towering over me. “I was trying to protect you!”
Never one to back down, I jump up and get in his face. “I didn’t need your protection! I needed my brother to trust me to make my own decisions!” My voice rises with each word as I jab a finger at the floor, fisting my other hand against my thigh. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? How much it hurt? I thought he didn’t care! That he didn’t like me anymore!”
“He was a player, Lizzy! He went through girls as if they were nothing!”
“So what?” My next words fly out before I can stop them. “Maybe I wanted to be one of those girls! True or not, it was my choice to make!”
