“I didn’t ask for a genie,” I tell Royal. “I asked for advice, because as fucked up as it is, the person who did this to me is the only person I know who’s been there. And now there’s not a man on this earth who’s going to want to deal with my baggage. I’m too damaged for anyone to ever want me.”
“Good.”
Some stupid little part of me is so pathetic that it wishes he’d contradict me, tell me I’m wrong, that someone still could. But of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t think I deserve anyone’s desire. He’s glad no one wants me, that everyone will see me as trash, the way he always did.
“Then tell me how to fake it,” I growl. “Obviously you did it. Everyone still wants your dick.”
“You don’t.”
“I did,” I shoot back. “I didn’t care about your damage until it ruined me, too.”
Royal stands and tosses the roach into the mud. “You think it didn’t ruin me, too? You think you’re the only one who gets to regret that we ever met? That it’s not torture for me to see you, too? At least I didn’t give up. I fucking tried, Harper.”
“Tried what? To make things right?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes full of misery. “You want to know when it’ll be over? Get it through your head, Harper. It’s never over. You said so yourself. You just keep going because you don’t have a choice. Stop trying to move on. You can’t.”
He storms past me toward the house.
I swallow hard, shaking my head. “No,” I say, turning around.
He stops, the rain streaking his back, and lowers his head.
“You’re wrong,” I say, forcing the words past the ache in my throat. “It ends when someone forgives.”
“And we both know that’s impossible,” he says quietly.
“No,” I say. “It’s possible if you make it possible.”
He doesn’t move for a minute. Rain drips through the leaves onto my face, running down my cheeks like tears.
“I can’t,” he says after a minute.
“I can,” I say, my throat aching as I force the words out. “I forgive you.”
My eyes sting, but I don’t care. I’m doing this, even if it hurts. For him, and for me, and for this whole fucked up town.
“Why would you do that?” Royal asks at last, his voice empty, his back still turned.
“Because holding onto this isn’t going to help anyone,” I say. “It hurts you, and more than that, it hurts me. It isn’t making me happy, and it never will. It doesn’t matter if you deserve it or even if you apologize. I will never think what you did is okay. But I can forgive you because I don’t want to carry this around anymore. I can let it go because it’s the only way to letyougo.”
“You’d forgive me just to get away from me?”
“Yes,” I say. “There’s enough hatred in this town without me adding more. I’ve seen what it did to you. To your family. To the Darlings. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to be that kind of person. I don’t want it to turn me into a monster like you.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I swallow past the ache in my throat. “And maybe because even though you did all those things for me, you never once asked me to forgive you.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asks after a long pause, as if he thinks he has to keep going, keep trying to earn something I’ve already given. After all, in his world, the penance never ends, either. That’s why he goes back.
“I want you to move on,” I say. “I don’t want to be another basement, another bridge for you to come back to. I don’t want to be anyone’s regret. Just go. Find some normal girl, and try to make her happy, and don’t take this out on her. Stop repeating the cycle. That’s how it ends. That’s all I want.”
“And you’ll forgive me, just like that.”
“Yes,” I say, drawing a shaky breath. “At least, I’ll start to. I think it’ll be more of a process than a one-and-done kind of thing. But I’ll let go of the idea that I can never forgive you, and I’ll let the process begin. I’ll work on it, work to make myself better instead of making you suffer. That’s the best I can do right now.”
Royal lifts his face to the rain and takes a deep breath. “Okay.”