“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“That doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”
Fair.
She picked up her purse.
“I fought for you while you were fighting yourself,” she said. “I can’t win that.”
I had no words.
She looked at me one last time.
Really looked.
At the bandages.
The tubes.
The face she had loved.
The mess I had made.
“I’m not giving you permission to go to her,” she said. “Do you understand me?”
I nodded once.
Small.
Painful.
“I am not stepping aside so the two of you can turn this into some grand love story where I was the sweet girl who learned to let go.” Her voice hardened. “No.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t get to make me the woman who stood in the way of your great love story.”
Her eyes shone.
“You did that, Dylan. You stood in the way.”
That was the cleanest wound of all.
I let it bleed.
Georgia moved toward the door, then stopped with her hand on the handle.
“When you’re better, you can have someone send my things.”
“I’ll bring them.”
“No.” She did not turn around. “You won’t.”
Of course.
I had lost that right too.
“My dad will get them,” she said. “Or Nate can ship them, if he survives his own idiotic need to be bulletproof.”
