She even ignores a call from her sister.
And my heart is about to flee my chest.
“Margot,” I finally say as she stands in the doorway of the empty bedroom, staring into it at the rumpled sheets on the bed and the throw pillows tossed in a corner.
She looks up at me, eyes hollow.
“Are you—” I start, then have to stop to clear my throat. “Are you okay?”
Of fucking course she’s not, dumbass.
Not like I’m going to ask her if we’re okay though.
The tightening in my gut and the tinny taste in my mouth tells me I don’t want to ask that question.
“I’m a terrible person,” she whispers.
“You’re not.”
“No, I am. I’m fighting natureandnurture and I’m tired and I don’t want to be a better person anymore. I want—I want to go home to my sister because she’ll love me no matter what, even when I don’t deserve it, while I learn to live with the knowledge that I will never be able to learn how to love people.”
I try to swallow and feel like I’m choking on my own tongue.
She can’t leave.
Not like this.
“You—you do,” I force out. “You know how to love people.”Please love me.Love me the way I love you. “What they said—what they did—it’s always been building to a shitty end, and they know it. They’ll come around. They know it wasn’t your fault.”
She shakes her head. “They shouldn’t. I—I’m not a nice person. If you knew the things I think?—”
“I know the things youdo. What you do matters more.”
“Maybe to you. But I—I’m not ready for this, Rhys. I shouldn’t have come here the way I did. I shouldn’t have thought I could pull off asking complete strangers to help me avenge someone whose actions thirty-some years ago are now pulling their families apart. But I did, because I’m selfish and cold and calculating and?—”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I’m trying not to be,but I still am. And I won’t—I can’t—I won’t walk into a relationship as anything less than the very best version of me, and I’m not there yet. I might never be there. And that’s—that has to be okay.”
“The people who love you want—they want to help you on your journey. They want to support you.”I love you. I want to support you.
But I can’t say it.
I can’t force the words out.
Who the fuck am I to think I know her better than she knows herself?
Who the fuck am I to think I can be the person she’d want to trust and lean on?
Her eyes get shiny, but she visibly swallows and blinks hard, and I’m suddenly looking at a confident, strong, take-no-prisoners warrior who has her shoulders back and her head held high and her chin set in steely determination despite the glassy sheen in her eyes.
“You have been so much more than what I deserve,” she says quietly, “and one day, you’ll find?—”
“Stop,” I whisper, my heart already bleeding. “Don’t say it.”
“One day, you’ll find happiness beyond your wildest imagination, and you’ll deserve every ounce of it.”
You’re my happiness.
