Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)(79)

“Wrote something that sounded like poetry.”

He looked up at the ceiling, as though she’d busted him for doing something terrible.

Instead of busting him for writing about the bloody painting and the telltale heart.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll give you that.”

“Will you give me the other stuff, too? The stuff about you loving me about a hundred years before you actually said a single thing? Loving me even when you claimed to hate me?”

“You must have known. You must have known I loved you. I practically told you so, so many times and in so many different ways. Why did you think I was at Breckenridge? Didn’t you wonder what I’d been doing in those two years you took off to recover? Didn’t you think it was weird that I was here?”

“I thought it was you being an *. Like you couldn’t breathe without me being there to belittle.”

He winced at the word belittle—but she couldn’t hold it back.

He had to know the truth, no matter how much it stung.

“And after you realized that was totally not the case?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I do know that you could have told me.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me. You don’t even believe it now after hacking into my emails and reading all my private thoughts and feelings that I never in a million years thought you’d see.”

Now it was her turn to sting, so sharply it made her eyes water.

Though it might have been more like crying, if she was being honest.

“God, don’t put it like that. I feel bad enough as it is.”

“You don’t have anything to feel bad about, honey.”

“But I do. I really, really do. I didn’t trust you, even after you did everything possible to help me. I blamed you for things that you weren’t to blame for. I jumped to terrible, shitty conclusions. And to top it off, everything was all my fault to begin with. You asked me out when we were sixteen and I rejected you in the grossest possible way.”

“And there’s the other reason I didn’t say anything. I knew that you would think that, I f*cking knew.” He shook his head, despite the fact that it seemed painful to do it. Made a fist and punched the mattress beneath him. “But you’re not f*cking responsible for shit that I chose to do. You didn’t owe me your love. You didn’t owe me a polite yes. It was not on you to let me down gently and somehow ward off punishment I was f*cking stupid enough to think you deserved.”

“You weren’t stupid, you were hurt.”

“Yeah, and over what? You didn’t even f*cking mean it. Right?”

She had to swallow a few extra breaths before speaking. Really calm herself down, after all this confessing of her own crimes. Though somehow, even after she’d gotten to the explanation part, everything still felt fraught and awkward. Her voice was so small when it finally emerged.

“I thought you were joking. I thought it was a joke. You were just so…you were so handsome, I just thought…I thought that was the start of you tormenting me. I didn’t understand that you were serious or I would never, ever have laughed and called you a…a jughead.”

It helped, that he laughed at the word jughead.

And when he reached over the space between them and put his big hand over hers.

“I know you wouldn’t, honey. I realized within seconds of talking to you like a human being that you would sooner poke out your own eyes than upset someone you barely know.” He paused to give her enough time to digest this. Then just whacked her with another sackful of emotional bricks. “And then when it dawned on me, I went back to my dorm and heaved my guts up for about six hours. It worked out nicely though—I made weight the next day super easily.”

“Christ. I don’t know which is worse: me or wrestling.”

“The answer is C: I am. I am the worst.”

She shook her head. Squeezed one of his fingers between her finger and thumb.

“You don’t get to say that anymore. Not when the stupid conclusions I jumped to almost made you commit suicide by psycho mobster.”

“Hey—that is not what happened. I got a little reckless and depressed, yeah, but that is all on me, not you. I’m the one who spent years f*cking up my own life. I’m the one who chose to be an ass to you. I don’t get to blame you now for trust issues I caused. You understand me? You have to understand—we covered this same thing like five minutes ago.”

“I do understand you. I promise I do. I just—” she started.

But thankfully he finished it for her.

“Stop. Start again, by putting some of this on my shoulders.”

“You’re in a hospital bed, Tate. I think your shoulders have taken enough.”

“My shoulders are fine. Come on. Just gimme one thing you wish I’d done differently.”

It was hard to consider, with him looking at her like that. He had turned onto his side, even though she was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to do that. And she could see where the skin had split around his jaw—those paper butterflies were lined up in a curling row over the red.

Plus he was stroking her knuckles now.

How was she was supposed to keep putting it on him, in light of that?

She had to glance away, just to get anywhere close.