You Will Be Mine (Forever and Ever #7)(63)

I looked at the ground, unable to meet his gaze.

“Look. At. Me.”

Tears dissolved on my tongue and I tasted them. Then I looked up again.

“There were so many other options, Skye. That never should have been one of them.”

I wiped my tears away and wished they would stop falling.

He breathed hard while he stared at me. Pain and longing were absent. All he felt was anger. He looked at me with disgust, as anger burned in his eyes. “Have you nothing to say?”

I looked away, my gaze focused out the window.

“Do you have any explanation? Do you have any defense? Do you have any justification?”

I closed my eyes for a moment then opened them again. “No.”

He continued to breathe hard while he watched me. “No?”

I cleared my throat so my voice wouldn’t crack. “I was trying to do the right thing…”

“The right thing?” he snapped. “That’s your idea of the right thing? Skye, what the fuck is wrong with you? At what point in time did this idiot plan sound like a good idea? I can’t believe you lied to me and tricked me like that. I can’t believe you hurt me so bad…”

I tightened my arms around my stomach. “I know… I went back for you a few weeks after you left. But…I was too late.”

For a moment, anger left his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“When I went to your apartment, a girl answered the door—just wearing your t-shirt. She said you were in the shower.”

Confusion came into his eyes.

“I was so hurt that you moved on that I left…” I looked out the window again, unable to meet his gaze.

His voice was void of emotion. “I never slept with anyone, Skye. I have a roommate. She belonged to him.”

My eyes turned back to him, and the knots in my chest loosened up slightly. The idea of him touching anyone else made me sick. And the fact he was still mine made me melt. “Really?”

“I’m hurt you assumed I would do that.” Now he was mad again. “And not that it’s any of your business, but there hasn’t been anyone else since we’ve been apart. I’d ask you the same, but I really don’t want to know.”

That was a slap in the face. “Of course, there hasn’t been.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him because his eyes changed. But they returned to anger so quickly I wasn’t sure if it happened. “I don’t know you anymore, Skye. I’m not sure what to believe.”

“I’ve been sitting in this same spot…missing you.”

“But not missing me enough to come clean,” he spat.

“I was just trying to put you first,” I argued feebly.

“By destroying me?” he asked incredulously. “Because that’s what you did, Skye. You destroyed me.”

My eyes burned with tears again.

He gripped his skull in frustration then closed his eyes. He didn’t know how to handle the anger or channel it. He was always so calm and collected. I’d never seen him have a meltdown. “I hate you for what you did to me. Do you understand that?”

Those words hurt more than anything else he had said. Cayson was never cruel. But he was being cruel now. “I…”

“You can’t treat me like that,” he hissed. “It was cold. And wrong.”

“I know… I was just trying to do the right thing.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I kept repeating it.

He stared at me, at a loss for words.

“I love you.” I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted to fight for him but I knew it was pointless. I hurt him too much. I broke him. This was something he wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t sweep it under the rug like all the other times. “I love you so much.”

He stared at the ground and didn’t say it back. He breathed hard, like he was trying to combat the distant pain in his body. Then he stepped back slowly, like he was trying to get away from me.

Then he walked out.