“D’you want me in your life?”
“You are my life.”
I lifted my chin. “Then go back to rehab and get clean.”
Risk’s eyes darkened. “Or what?”
“Or tonight will be the last time we ever see one another.”
Risk’s lips parted, he looked like I just told him the world was ending.
“Why d’you keep doing this to me?” he asked, the hurt in his tone weighed heavily on my shoulders. “Why do you keep doing what I never thought you would?”
“What am I doing? What have I done?”
“You’re sending me away.”
I froze.
“You weren’t supposed to send me away!” He shook. “Never you!”
I couldn’t speak. His arms dropped limp to his sides. Tobias, Jacob, May, Hayes and Angel were standing a few metres away watching us, listening to every word we spoke.
“May and Hayes became my friends because their mums told them to play with me when we were in reception. I know they love me, but I wasn’t their choice for a friend. I wasn’t Owen and Freda’s choice for a foster kid, I wasn’t a choice for any family who met with me to adopt me. I wasn’t wanted, I was no one’s choice . . . until you.”
A sob left my mouth.
“You wanted me just for me.” His eyes were glazed over with tears. “Before I was Risk Keller, I was your rock star. You showed me what it feels like to be loved so completely, you showed me what it’s like to be in a family. You were everything to me, Frankie . . . and you sent me away. Just like everyone else. You sent me away.”
I knew he was going to turn and walk away from me and I knew that if I left him, there would never be a chance for us to be anything to one another, not even friends. Before he had a chance to move, I rushed forward and wrapped my arms around his middle. I squeezed him so tight, I heard his breath catch.
“You would have resented me,” I said, my throat hurting from the need to cry. “You would have given everything up for me, I knew you would have. I couldn’t live with being the person who dimmed your light, Risk. I broke my own heart when I ended us.”
I held on to him tightly when his hands touched my back and gripped tightly on to my T-shirt.
“You didn’t believe in us, Frankie,” he said. “Not like I did.”
I looked up at him. “I believed in us more than anything in this world, but can you look me in the eye and tell me that you would have lived the life you have knowing I was here in Southwold? Would you have settled for seeing me a few times a year or would you have given everything up just to be with me?”
“So what if I would have given it up?” he demanded, his jaw clenched with anger. “Who fucking cares about Blood Oath?”
“You do. I do.” I lifted my hands up to his face. “I couldn’t make you choose, honey. No matter how much I wanted to tell you to forget it all and stay with me forever.”
He froze. “You wanted to tell me that?”
“Risk,” I whispered, rubbing my thumbs over his cheeks. “I talked myself out of it every day for six months after you left. I wanted to get on a plane and go to you. I cried myself to sleep countless nights because I hurt for you. I loved you so much, rock star . . . I still do. I love you, Risk.”
The tears that had gathered in his blue eyes fell.
“I love you more than anyone has ever loved another person . . . but we don’t work, honey. We don’t. Look at you. Look at me. Look at the hurt we have put one another through.”
Risk’s eyes were wild, he couldn’t make them focus.
“Why can’t we work?” he rasped. “You’re the only woman I want. Only you.”
And I only wanted him . . . but I couldn’t have him. I couldn’t.
“Not like this.” I shook my head. “We can’t be together like this. I’m still needed here in Southwold; my mum still needs me.”
“I need you too, Frankie.”
“And I need you, honey . . . but not like this.”
He said nothing.
“Look at me.”
His eyes found mine.
“When you first left, it broke me. I mean that literally, I was devastated. I need you to know that . . . that I had a coping mechanism of my own to help me get through it. You had your music and I had diary entries, you could say . . . only they were text messages . . . that I sent to you.”
“What?”
“I’ve sent messages, God, hundreds of them over the years to your old phone number. ‘Talking’ to you helped me, it was therapeutic for me. I’m going to do something I never thought I would do, I’m going to forward every single one of them to your new number just so you can see that I could never have erased you. You’ve always been with me even when you weren’t, you were always on my mind, always in my heart.”