Page 56 of To Obsess

“Okay, see, I didn’t lie. My middle name is Alexander—Alex for short. That was true,” I rattle off, doing my best to mitigate damages. “We hit it off so well at the bookstore, but I didn’t think you would even remember me from high school or anything, so I didn’t see the harm in it.”

Her eyes dull before heating to a level of fury that is both incredible and terrifying. “Oh. My. God.” Her hand flies to her forehead with a thud. “The letters. You were trying to tell me who you were all along.” She looks up at me for confirmation. When I don’t deny it, she continues. “The lower-case letters. They spell ‘Killian’.”

I nod in agreement. “I was trying to give you a chance to figure it out and stop all of this before we made it this far, but it just didn’t work. You kept writing to me, kept pushing me to reveal myself, even though that’s exactly what I was already doing.”

She balls her fists at her sides, squeezing and releasing her fingers over and over to abate the anger. “You weren’t truthful with me. Even if you didn’t outright lie, you didn’t tell me the truth, Killian, and that’s the same damned thing.” The quiet fury is worse than if she were outright screaming at me. I can feel her shutting down, blocking me out.

“You’re right,” I say, raising my hands in surrender. “I wasn’t upfront with you, and I should have been. If you want the truth on that, I was scared. I was scared that when you found out I wrote you all those birthday cards, you’d be disappointed. I was scared that if I told you I was writing all these letters and leaving the sunflowers, you’d be unimpressed because it was me. You never once looked at me as anything special when we were in school, and I assumed that carried on into adulthood as well.” I scrub a hand down my face, begging the tears to stop before they spill over my lower lids.

“I should have told you. I should have told you all of it, from the first card to the letters to Gunnar and the sunflowers and the turtle. I had no right to keep any of it from you.” The second my mouth stops moving, my entire body freezes.

Her head ticks to the side as her eyebrows scrunch together. “What about Gunnar?”

Chapter 49

KILLIAN

For the first time in my life, I’m completely frozen. My mind is quiet, though my ears are filled with an intense ringing that blocks out everything else, including whatever words are currently spewing from Violet’s mouth. The longer I stand in silence, the angrier she looks.

“What?” I ask when I can finally get my mouth to cooperate the slightest bit.

She’s absolutely fuming. “What. About. Gunnar?” She enunciates every word like she’s talking to a small child who just broke a prized heirloom after being told to stop running in the house.

“He was an asshole.” Though it’s true, I regret the words as soon as they fall from my lips. It’s clear the words wound her, even if they’re true. She blinks back the tears threatening to roll down her cheeks. Whether they’re from hurt or anger or embarrassment, I’m not sure. I only know that my heart is splintering inside my chest, sending waves of agony through me with every beat. I shove my hands deeper in my pockets to keep from reaching out to her, from trying to console her and make this all go away.

“He was an asshole, and what he did to you was awful. What he was trying to do to you was awful,” I justify, filling my voice with as much sorrow as I can manage. “I was only trying to solve a problem.”

Her eyes widen as the words register. “Oh my god.” She doesn’t move, only stares at me in horror as my words finally begin to process. “You killed him. You did all those horrible things to him and left him in the woods.”

I don’t bother to acknowledge her assumption. We both know it’s the truth and admitting it won’t make the blow any easier for her.

“Did you leave that painting in the woods, too?”

Again, I decline to answer, knowing it isn’t really needed. She just needs to ask the question out loud and give me a chance to deny it. That’s all the answer she needs.

She swallows audibly, licking her lips nervously as she lifts one hand to her hair, running the fingers from root to tip. “Fuck. Okay,” she mumbles to herself while her eyes flit from my face back to the pile of memories on the forest floor.

“How long have you been watching me?” I knew we would eventually make it to this question, but I was hoping to have more time. I was hoping to gain another chance to fix this, a shot to make it right. Maybe starting with Gunnar was a bad idea, but what’s done is done.

“A long time,” I finally admit quietly. “I’ve watched you on and off for years. It didn’t become a regular thing until this past year, though.”

She doesn’t respond this time. Her knees buckle and she sinks to her knees just off the edge of the blanket, hands braced against the forest floor.

I fight the urge to go to her, to pull her against me and whisper all the reassurances I have no confidence in anymore. I want to tell her everything will be alright, that there’s a solution to all of this that allows us to walk away and start over. But I root myself to the spot, refusing to lie anymore.

“Why didn’t you just tell me who you were at the bookstore? Why did you keep writing the letters? Why didn’t you explain all of it to me instead of dropping off the face of the planet?” I assume her questions are rhetorical, so I bite my tongue. Her anger is ebbing now, but it’s still hot enough to burn if I say the wrong thing now. “You left me feeling like it was all my fucking fault. Like I read the entire situation wrong, and you weren’t actually interested in me. Like you were pretending the entire time.”

A dry laughs echoes through the trees before she scrubs a thumb under her left eye to catch the rogue tear. “You were pretending, though. Just not how I thought then. I would have never guessed.”

I take a step toward her, but she topples backward, arms flying out behind her. “Stay away from me, Killian.”

“You don’t have to be afraid, Vi. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.” I’m frantic to soothe her, desperate to keep her from running from me.

“You killed a man, Killian. Killed him. He’s dead because of you. His mother, his friends. Everyone who loved him is grieving a loss they’ll never recover from because you have no fucking self-control. You ruined their lives when you took his.” The venom dripping from her voice takes me by surprise, but it isn’t unwarranted. I deserve every ounce of her hatred and then some for the things I’ve done. But I was only trying to protect her. I only wanted to keep her safe.

“If you’ll just give me a second, I can explain!” My heart thunders in my chest until I can hear every beat in my ears. My lungs feel as if they can’t pull in enough oxygen, like I’m teetering toward a blackout. When the roaring fills my ears, I close my eyes and put a hand on each temple, squeezing slightly.

She gets back to her feet unsteadily, keeping them wide as if she’s waiting for me to attack her. She doesn’t understand. Oh god, even after all this time, she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get it.