Page 222 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

This whole day has been a fever dream. A horrible, bizarre one with fluorescent lighting and educational posters.

Tiffany hears me and makes another furious lunge in my direction, but now she’s all noise and no traction. Mrs. Kline steps back like Tiffany might be contagious. Denise is openly crying behind the desk. Somewhere down the hall, I hear another teacher trying to keep the children away with a too-bright voice and the rustle of emergency coloring sheets.

Max finally looks at me properly.

“June,” he says quietly, “I’m sorry.”

The words hit me and… nothing.

No gratitude or sense of vindication. No temptation to soften. No pathetic hope. Just tiredness. The kind that comes after carrying something heavy too long and finally realizing you can set it down because it was never yours to begin with.

“I know,” I say.

That surprises him.

It surprises me too.

He blinks. “You… know?”

“I know you’re sorry now,” I say. “Now that it’s ugly. Now everyone can hear it and you have to look at it.”

His face tightens because it’s true, and we both know it.

“I should have left you alone,” he says after a beat. “I should have let all of it go. I shouldn’t have texted you all those terrible things when you’d already left and made it very clear you didn’t want to hear from me.”

“Yes, you should,” I say.

He nods once, swallowing. “And you’re better off without me.”

The whole hall seems to wait.

And I think about the girl in the car with mascara streaked down her face and a box of school supplies in the backseat and nowhere to go. The girl who blocked his number with shaking hands because she was terrified she’d need him again. The girl who thought leaving him might be the bravest thing she’d ever do.

Then I think about Wayne’s hand on my back. Fletcher beside me. Rex holding the line. Evan’s hug in Sandra’s kitchen. Redwood Run. The garage. The market. The river. The version of my life I’ve built out of scraps after I thought everything important had been taken from me.

“Yes,” I say. “I am. And I don’t want to hear from you ever again. I won’t be continuing with the restraining order request I’ve started against you.”

Max closes his eyes briefly.

When he opens them again, there’s grief there. Real grief. I can see that it’s not because he lost control of me, but because he finally understands he never deserved me at all.

He looks at Wayne, then Fletcher, then Rex. Some strange kind of acknowledgment passes across his face. He sees in one glance that I am not alone, not vulnerable, not coming back, that whatever fantasy he’s been feeding about me eventually needing him has finally died.

“Take her home,” he says. “You won’t hear from me again.”

Wayne’s voice is ice. “That was always the plan.”

Max nods once. Then he turns to Tiffany, who has gone frighteningly quiet. “You need help.”

She laughs, broken and furious. “You made me like this.”

“No,” he says, the regret in his voice sounding genuine. “I didn’t stop it. That’s on me. But this? This is all you.”

Tiffany’s face crumples around the edges.

For one split second, I almost feel sorry for her.

Then I remember the emails. The nasty rumors. The bed. The months I spent wondering what was wrong with me, and the feeling disappears.