“Because he loved you,” Tria says, her voice quiet and pained.
Her eyes are no longer on me. They’ve found the floor, and my heart clenches.
“You didn’t love me, Kode. Fuck. You didn’t love me or you wouldn’t have done this. You bastard!”
“Rain, I know that I don’t—”
“No,” she interrupts. “You don’t get to defend yourself. I fell apart, and you just let me. You knew I loved Dane, and you made me think he abandoned me? And you let me continue believing that you didn’t know I loved him, so I suffered in silence—agonizing silence from a secret I didn’t have to keep. Why? How the hell could you do that to me?”
There aren’t words to explain the actions of an eighteen-year-old kid who thought he was in love.
“Because you’re his idea of perfection,” Tria says, sounding heartbroken as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
In my distraction, I never see Rain approach, but I feel the hard slap that resounds off my face. I wouldn’t have stopped her even if I had seen her coming.
“I hate you,” she says in a hoarse whisper, her tears falling harder as my eyes come down to meet her teary ones.
“I’m sorry, Rain. I was a stupid kid at the time.”
“Sorry? Kode is sorry. Imagine that. Well, Kode, you can’t be sorry for this one. I lost six years of my life because of you. I can’t have children now. I lost that chance because of you!”
I wish she had just slapped me again. It would have felt better than that.
“Rain!” Tria yells, stepping toward us. “That’s not on him. Don’t do that.”
Rain glares at her, but the knife is already in my heart. Did I really steal something that precious?
“Rain, that’s not right,” Dane says, shaking his head with tears in his eyes. “We could have gone to each other. You could have had—”
“Shut up,” she cries, her eyes so red and raw, and then her attention comes back to me. “Do not ever speak to me again.”
She storms out of the house, leaving me in pile of rubble as I slump to the chair. Dane walks over and squeezes my shoulder. “That’s not on you. She’s hurt right now. And she’s seriously drunk. She’ll calm down. She didn’t meant that.”
But in the end, the words are there, and I deserve it.
Dane sighs while looking toward Tria, but I can’t even bring myself to meet her eyes.
“Sorry, Tria. He… wanted to tell you. I asked him not to.”
With that, he starts to leave, but not before Tria says, “Because you didn’t want Rain hurt, right?”
Dane’s retreat is stalled, and I turn to see his apologetic eyes looking into mine before he answers, “Yeah.”
Tria nods solemnly, not giving me any indication as to what she’s going to do or say. Dane leaves, and my whole body becomes hot and cold at once. It’s hard to do, but I finally look over to meet Tria’s eyes.
“Tria, I’m sorry. I was a stupid—”
“How long did you feel like that toward her? Obviously you felt that way before you were eighteen. And you felt that way not long ago. So how long?”
Her voice is even, not rattled anymore. It’s almost like she’s not surprised, and that hurts almost as badly as what Rain said to me.
“Since I was thirteen. But, Tria, I didn’t love her the way I thought I did. I swear to you that I didn’t.”
Now would be the worst possible time to confess the fact that I know that because I didn’t know what love felt like until her. It would sound insincere, and I can’t ruin it with this bullshit tainting the words.
“Kode,” she sighs, coming to sit beside me on the arm of the chair, and I reflexively wrap my arm around her waist. She doesn’t knock it away or recoil from me. So that has to be a good sign.
“I told you once that I wouldn’t compete with Rain. Our relationship is still new. We’ve got bitter ties for different reasons, and we’re finally moving past that. I don’t want to hate her, but right now, I almost do.”