“Every day you didn't tell me feels like a choice. Like you chose protecting yourself over trusting me.” The words are coming out broken now. “You had so many chances—fuck, even last night when I told you about Professor Long, about how scared I was.”
“I know?—”
“Do you remember what I said about Paige? About how the worst part wasn't the cheating but everyone knowing except me?” I'm gripping the doorframe now because my legs feel weak. “You did the exact same thing. You knew this huge thing about us, about my work, and you just... kept it to yourself. Let me look like an idiot who didn't know the truth about his own relationship.”
“That's not what happened?—”
“Then what happened, Piper? Because from where I'm standing, you're just another person who thought I was too stupid to handle the truth.”
“Stop saying that about yourself?—”
“Why? It's clearly what you think. What everyone thinks.” My chest is so tight I can barely breathe. “No wonder Miles chose Harper.”
The words come out before I can stop them, born from the same cruel place that made Paige tell me I was “just a placeholder.”
She gasps like I've physically hit her, and immediately I want to take it back. But I can't stop now.
“You can't even be honest with someone who actually wants you. Maybe he saw what I was too stupid to see—that you're so broken you'll sabotage anything good rather than risk being real.”
“You're right,” she whispers, and the defeat in her voice makes my stomach turn.
She's not fighting back. Not defending herself. Just... accepting it. Like I've confirmed her worst fear about herself.
For a second, the anger cracks and I see what I'm doing. I'm being my father. I'm being Paige. I'm taking someone's insecurity and using it as a weapon.
But the hurt is sitting in my chest like a physical weight, making it hard to breathe, and I can't stop.
“I need to go.” I grab my phone with shaking hands, can't look at her anymore. “I need space to think.”
“What about tutoring?”
Even now she's thinking about assignments. About grades. About everything except the fact that she just destroyed us.
“I'll figure it out.” I head for the door, my body moving on autopilot because if I stop moving, I'll collapse. “I just... I can't do this right now.”
“I'm sorry,” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I pause at the door, finally look back at her. She's curled into herself, looking exactly as broken as I feel. “So am I.”
I close the door and immediately have to brace myself against the hallway wall. My legs give out and I slide down to sit, head between my knees, trying to breathe through what is definitely a panic attack.
Because it happened again. I let someone in, gave them everything, and they kept secrets that mattered. They looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the truth.
The worst part is that for a moment there, I became exactly what I hate. I became cruel. I used her deepest insecurity against her just like Paige used mine against me.
But I can't go back in there. Can't fix it. Because right now, all I can feel is the familiar ache of being betrayed by someone I loved.
And the ninety-four percent compatibility feels like the universe's cruelest joke yet.
I barely makeit to my car before my legs give out. I collapse into the driver’s seat, hands shaking so badly I can’t get the key in the ignition.
The panic hits in waves. My chest feels crushed, like someone’s standing on it. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. All I can see is Piper’s face when I said those things. The way she just... accepted it.
No wonder Miles chose Harper.
What the fuck did I just do?
My phone buzzes. I fumble for it, hoping?—
