That was what made me want to put my fist through Ryan’s wall.
“Do you think it’s possible?” Ryan asked.
I opened my eyes. “What?”
He looked down at the floor for a moment, like he already knew I would hate the question and had decided to ask it anyway. “Just hear me out, East.”
“I’m already against it.”
“I haven’t said it yet.”
“Your face did.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Do you think it’s possible she feels the same and is terrified?”
Every muscle in my body locked, but Ryan didn’t look away.
I stared at him, waiting for the punch line or the part where he made the idea less insulting and impossible, less like he had reached into my chest and dragged my worst thought into the open air.
He didn’t.
“She looked gutted tonight,” Ryan said. “That wasn’t indifference.”
Something inside me snapped upright. “How the fuck could you think she feels the same?”
“Because I saw her face.”
“You saw her face?” I stood so quickly that the peas slid from my hand and struck the floor with a dull slap. “You saw her face and decided what? That this is love? That she’s scared? That I should be understanding because Aura might have feelings she refuses to admit?”
Ryan folded his arms. “I said hear me out.”
“No, you hear me out.” I pointed at him with the towel-wrapped hand, blood already seeping through the white cotton. “Love doesn’t look you in the eye and tell you to fuck off.”
Ryan went still.
“Love doesn’t call you dramatic the second you finally say the thing that’s been eating you alive,” I continued, my voice climbing because if I stopped, I would feel too much of it. “Love doesn’t make you feel stupid for handing over the one part of yourself nobody else gets. Love doesn’t take the truth and make it ugly because the room got too real.”
“I’m not saying what she did was right.”
“If that was love, then her version and mine are not the fucking same.”
Ryan took the hit without flinching. “Fear can block a thousand emotions.”
I laughed, and it came out ugly. “Great. Put that on a pillow.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I dragged one hand through my hair and paced toward the window before turning back because the apartment was too small for that much fury. “You all want to think that’s love? Fine. What a beautiful, romantic story. Aura loved me so much she lied to me ten toes down, let me stand there feeling like I was losing my mind, and cosigned her own bullshit when I called her on what was happening between us.”
Ryan held my gaze, and I hated him for letting me keep going. I hated him more for looking like he understood.
“She didn’t only deny it,” I said, quieter now, which made it worse. “She made me feel stupid for feeling it. That’s what eats me alive. Not that she didn’t feel it, because I could survive that. Rejection is clean. It hurts, but at least it’s honest.”
My voice cracked, and I looked away quickly, my jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
“It’s the thought in the back of my head that maybe she did feel it. That maybe I wasn’t making it up. If she felt even a fraction of what I did, Ryan, tell me how the fuck she could do that to me.”
Ryan didn’t answer immediately.
