Picking Up the Pieces (Pieces, #2)(69)
She straightened, dropped her shoulders, and turned around to face me. “I’m not sure.” Her face contorted into a genuine look of confusion.
“That sounds . . . ominous.”
She laughed and I was overcome with the depth with which I loved that laugh. Part of my road to self-discovery over the past few weeks had involved me coming to terms with my feelings for Lily. And as I finally accepted how deep they were, I knew that I had to also accept that they’d never be returned. But with her there, in my house, a slight flicker of hope radiated within my chest. And I almost hated her for putting it there. This unannounced visit would set back the progress I had made in trying to get over her. And since there had been virtually no progress to begin with, I knew I was totally f*cked.
She looked down at her hands clasped in front of her before jerking her eyes up to me sheepishly. “I have to ask you something, and I need the truth.”
“Am I known for lying to you?” Though I’m sure she hadn’t intended it to, her comment stung. Between the two of us, I was definitely not the bigger liar.
Reading the irritation in my voice, she dropped her hands and lifted her face so that I could see her fully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. I just meant that I don’t want you to spare anything. I want to know it all.”
My arms were crossed over my chest, and I leaned against the nearest wall. “Go ahead.”
“Why did you talk to Adam?” She wasted no time asking the question, almost as if she needed to hurry up and put it out there before she lost the nerve.
My body jerked slightly at her words. Of all the things I thought she’d come here to ask me, this wasn’t one of them. I had expected an inquiry about the coupon I’d slipped in her coat, or my not telling her about the broadcasting gig, but definitely not this. What the hell kind of f*cked up mind games is Carter playing? I lifted myself off the wall and dropped my hands to my side, before raising my shoulders in a small shrug. “If he told you about our conversation, then I think it’s clear why I did it.”
“It’s not.”
I stared at her for a moment, willing her with my eyes not to do this. The talk with Adam had been one of the most difficult things I’d ever done in my life. Ceding defeat to that prick had been gut-wrenching. I’d replayed the night in my mind at least a hundred times: sometimes with regret, sometimes with sadness, and sometimes with rage. “I don’t want to stand in the way of anyone’s happiness anymore. That’s all.”
“Oh come on, Max. First I find the apology coupon, and then Adam tells me that you went to him and promised you’d stay away from me. I—"
“A promise you’re making me break by being here, I might add. What do you want from me, Lily? To admit that I’m a dick? Fine, I’m a dick. Everything you said to me that night in my driveway was the truth. I’m a taker, a user, a spoiled brat who’s only out for himself. But I don’t enjoy being that person, especially not when it comes to you. So I finally try to be a decent person for once in my life and fix something that I broke, and I get f*cking interrogated for it in my own goddamn house.” The more I spoke, the more my anger flared. She was always f*cking with my head, calling me out on things that were best left the hell alone. Why couldn’t she just go have her happily ever after with that * and leave me to try and figure out my own shit?
“Stop being a drama queen. I’m not interrogating you; I’m just trying to figure out . . .” she flailed her hand in my direction, “you.” She took a deep breath and seemed to try to organize her thoughts before she spoke again. “I feel bad.”
I started to speak—tell her that I didn’t need her f*cking pity—but she rose a hand to stop me.
“I feel bad because I’ve placed a lot of blame on you for everything that’s happened in my life during the past year. And even though I’ve said over and over again that I accept responsibility for my actions, I really haven’t. It’s easier to lash out at you, to make you the bad guy, to point out all of your flaws and shortcomings than to take ownership of my own. When I called you in September, I acted like I was doing some noble thing: helping out poor, sad Max. But we both know I’m far from noble, don’t we?” She smiled sadly. “Part of me needs you. And whether it’s because you’ll willingly play the bad guy so that I don’t have to, or because you so adeptly play the victim while I get to be the savior, or because we have some kind of f*cked up co-dependence, I’m really not sure. But whatever it is, I can’t let you feel that you need to keep paying for some sin that you never committed.” Suddenly, her face lit up into a genuine smile. “I’m here to help ya down off the cross, Samson. You don’t need to pay for my mistakes anymore.”
I stood there for a second, trying to process what the hell had just happened. Then, my lips twitched into a sardonic smile as I said, “Did I just get saved?”
Lily released a throaty laugh and shook her head. “You’re such an ass.”
I let the smile fade slowly from my lips. Then I looked at her seriously. “So where does all of this leave us?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “My life is beyond complicated.” She looked at me hopefully, clearly wanting me to pose a solution that could make this all better. But there was no such solution.
Elizabeth Hayley's Books
- Where Shadows Meet
- Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine #3)
- A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)
- Save the Date
- Part-Time Lover (Part-Time Lover #1)
- My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)
- Getting Schooled (Getting Some #1)
- Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)
- Speakeasy (True North #5)
- The Good Luck Sister (Wildstone #1.5)