His Reverie (Reverie #1)(64)

Again we stare at each other, the both of us seeming at a loss at what to say. I’m trying to come up with something, anything to keep her here with me a little bit longer but my mind is a blank. All I can worry about is her finding out about my jail time. About my best friend the liar. She already knows about my ex the slut. My shitty apartment. My shitty life. My dead mom. She doesn’t need to deal with someone like me. She deserves more. Better.

She definitely deserves better than me.

“If you lack that much faith in me, in us, that we can stay together no matter if my parents find out or if the entire world finds out, then forget it. Forget this. Forget us,” she finally says, her voice firm yet full of defeat. “I can’t believe in this enough for the both of us. It’s a team effort but you’re not willing to play.”

“You’ll leave me no matter what,” I say, my voice cracking, my heart breaking. “Whether now or later. This can’t last. You know it.”

She nods once, completely expressionless. I can’t read her at all and usually she’s an open book. “So you’re giving up.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Oh, Nicholas.” She sounds so wistful she makes me yearn. Yearn to take her in my arms and never, ever let her go. So we can face the consequences together. “You always have a choice. What’s so sad is that you don’t even see it.” She walks up to me and kisses my cheek, her lips lingering as if she doesn’t want to stop.

I close my eyes, savoring her scent, her mouth on my skin, her close proximity to me. I reach out and grip her elbow, holding her close for one last desperate moment, but she gently pulls out of my touch. Until she’s over there and I’m over here and it’s like she took a piece of me away with her and I’m left broken and alone.

Reverie may be standing in front of me still but I am completely and totally alone.

“I thought you were stronger than that,” she whispers before she turns and walks away.

I thought I was stronger too. I guess I wasn’t. But she is.

And as she leaves me, she never once looks back.

36

Dear Diary,

(August 5th, 4:22 p.m.) My heart is breaking. Nicholas left me for his stupid slut girlfriend. I don’t understand why. What did I do wrong? How could he go back to her? He’s so afraid of my parents finding out we’re together. I constantly reassure him that they’ll approve of us as a couple. That what we’re doing isn’t wrong when it feels so right. But he won’t listen. He doesn’t believe me.

He doesn’t believe in us.

I walked away from him before he could walk away from me. I knew I would fall completely apart if I let him walk first so I had to do it. Instead, I made it into my room before I crumpled. I’ve cried for a solid hour. I’m still crying. My vision is blurry from the tears. My chest hurts from all the sobbing. I have a headache that no medicine can fix. My heart hurts from Nick’s rejection.

Is it wrong that I still want to go to him and ask him to change his mind? Is it wrong that I want to sneak out of here and go to his apartment? I don’t think so. When the heart knows what it wants, it won’t stop until it gets it. And what I want most of all is Nicholas Fairfield.

Despite his rejection. Despite how easily he gave up on us, I still love him. I still want him. He said he loved me too. That was the first time he ever told me. As our world is falling apart around us, as he lets his ex put her hands all over him and then lets her kiss him, within minutes after that, he’s telling me he loved me.

I didn’t answer him. How could I? His words both filled my heart with joy and made it shrivel up in pain. I hate that he gave up so easily. I hate that he lets Krista control him that much. Why can’t he stand up to her? What sort of control does she hold over him? What does she know that I don’t know?

He has a secret. There’s really no other reason for him to act like this. I need to find out what his secret is.

I must.

37

Foreboding: to foretell or predict; be an omen of

August 5th (longest day ever)

It started to rain around seven and it still hasn’t let up two hours later. Which is fine really. The late summer rain fits my mood. Angry and relentless, it rages on with a violent wind, the air steamy. I throw open my living room window and listen to the rain fall outside. The occasional crack of thunder, the flash of lightning, I’m taking it all as a sign that everything is going to shit.

Because it is. Everything good in my life is slipping right out of my hands. I let Reverie walk away from me like she was nothing. I let Krista control me like I’m nothing. I agree to do whatever she wants because I’m scared that if my girl finds out the truth of what I’ve done, what kind of man I really am, she’ll run. And I’d rather give in to Krista than face Reverie’s parents. My employers.

I’m a coward.

Her words keep coming back to me. That she never judged me, she only fell in love with me. And she’s right. She never passed judgment. From the moment we locked eyes she’s shown interest. She’s been friendly and sweet. It didn’t matter that I worked for her parents. It didn’t matter that I’m broke and have nothing and have no plans on going to college and can’t take her out in style. Hell, I couldn’t even muster up a birthday present for her that was of any value.

But she didn’t care. She accepted me openly. So why wouldn’t she accept what happened to me openly too?