Desperation bubbles to the surface and spills over. “How can you not see it?”
“See what?”
“Don’t you get it? All of it was bullshit!” I yell. “I lied!”
Her voice goes eerily calm. “Lied about what, exactly?”
Her frustration at my lack of explanation is understandable, but I’ve spent so many years avoiding and pushing my feelings down, I don’t know how to tell her the truth. I worry I’ve ruined this, us, beyond repair and she’ll never forgive me.
And I’ll lose her all over again.
“About everything.” I run my hands through my hair.
She skims her bottom lip with her teeth, running them over the scar. “Explain that, please,” she says, voice barely a whisper.
“After our parents sat us down and told us we needed a break, I was so angry. It hurt to stay away from you. I hated it, but I also realized I didn’t have control anymore. Not when it came to you. It had to be all or nothing. I was making you worse. I was making me worse. I made you dependent on me, and the worst part was that I wanted it that way. They were right to try to split us up. I was so fucking toxic.”
“That’s what you said, we were toxic for each other.”
I shake my head. “You were never toxic for me, but I was toxic for you. For a while I didn’t see it, but you started to do better. I hated that you were okay without me. I knew if I kept coming back, it would ruin you, and you’d already been through so much.” I lace my fingers behind my neck and pace the length of the room. “But that night before we moved, all I wanted was to see you, see for myself that you really were better and that I’d done the right thing.”
“You kissed that girl the day you left! I saw it happen.”
“I was angry! You didn’t come to say goodbye.”
Her eyes flash with indignation. It’s understandable, but it’s terrifying all the same. “You’d barely spoken to me in months. What was I saying goodbye to? And it’s not as though you made an effort to reach out after you moved anyway!”
“I did try, but you shut me down and then stopped responding!”
“River blocked your messages,” she says softly. “I didn’t know until recently.”
“Of course he fucking did. And you know what? He was right to do it because I wouldn’t have been able to let you go otherwise. After we moved, I still missed you all the damn time. It killed me that you were gone from my world, but there wasn’t another option. I wasn’t going to be good for you. Everyone saw what I couldn’t. I was naïve to believe that after five fucking years I could handle being near you again. I couldn’t deal at all. All it took was seeing you once and everything came rushing back. I was still going to be toxic for you. And you weren’t a kid anymore, which made it worse. Nothing had changed, Lavender. Not for me. I felt exactly the same as I had the day I moved away from you, so I lied.” She’s silent and unmoving, so I continue, digging my own grave. “That night when you came and found me at your parents’—”
“You mean the night I caught you creeping on me and followed you back to the spare room, and you made me repeat all of those horrible things you said?” Her voice is hard and sharp like knives.
I stop in front of her. “You were seventeen, and I was already in college. If I had done what I’d wanted to, I would have caused us to implode. I wouldn’t have been able to manage the distance and not being there when you needed me. I already knew what leaving you felt like. I didn’t think I’d survive it again.”
“So you told me you didn’t want me and you never would.”
“I lied to save you from me.” My chest aches, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
She rubs the scar on her bottom lip. “And all the shit you’ve pulled this year? The horrible things you’ve said and done? I’m just supposed to forgive you because you decided this was how you were going to protect me?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I just want you to understand.”
“You made me feel like nothing. You were a huge part of my life, and you abandoned me.”
“Because I loved you, I l—”
She recoils and puts her hands up defensively. “Do not finish that sentence. You don’t deserve to say those words, not with the way you’ve treated me. From the first day I came here, you made me feel like a nuisance.”
“I wasn’t prepared for what it was like to be this close to you again.”