“You didn’t.”
“But I did.” She dared meet my eyes. “I never understood how I could touch you, hug you, kiss you, and you never knew. I didn’t know how I could hide my jealousy when you were with Cassie or later with your one-night stands. I lay awake at night analysing every sentence I said to you, amazed that you never heard what I’d been shouting for longer than I could remember.”
She pressed her face into my right hand, daring to donate a kiss on the edge of my work-worn palm even as her eyes flashed with resentment. “Is that what you came back to hear? To hurt me a little more? To force me to admit that I’ve been stupidly in love with you for years, and there was nothing I could do about it?” Her blue gaze burned. “Is it, Ren? Because fine, you got your wish. Whatever you read…it’s true. I started writing it for college, but then I realised you were right all along. I can never tell people our story because they won’t understand. To start with, I was more afraid of them seeking you out and putting you in prison for kidnapping, but now I’m more afraid that I’d be judged for falling in love with someone who raised me. I’m horrified of what they’d say, the looks they’d give, the disgust on their faces because, even though I understand it’s morally wrong, I can’t help how I feel.”
She kicked a foot-trodden paper, her body wriggling against mine. “I’m sick of feeling like I have to hide. From you and everyone else. I’m sick of lying to David that one day I’ll get over you. I’m sick of watching you self-destruct by sleeping with a parade of women when I was there all along. Wanting you. Waiting for you. Begging you to just open your stupid eyes and see me—”
My boot thudded heavily as I took the final step into her. My leg between her legs. My hips to her hips. My body against her body. My heart pounded as I cupped her cheeks harder, willing her to understand. “They’re open now. Believe me. I see you.” My fingertips burned as I forced myself to be gentle.
She froze, inhaling quick. Her eyelids fell to that sultry stare I had no power against, and this time, I didn’t fight it. This time, my gaze latched onto her parted mouth, and I couldn’t do anything else. I collapsed against her, I breathed in her delicious, familiar scent, and I pressed my lips—
She tore away, ripping her face from my hold and ducking beneath the cage of my arms.
For a second, my brain couldn’t figure out what had just happened. That the kiss didn’t connect. But as I spun around to face her, my jeans tight with unrequited desire, and my mind a fucking mess, I gulped back pure agony as she shook her head, wrapping tight arms around herself as more tears cascaded down her cheeks. “I-I don’t know if you do. If you truly saw me, Ren, you’d understand that this—”
“This what?”
“Whatever this is won’t fix what you’ve been running from.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that? That’s why I’m here, Della. Aren’t you fucking listening? I’m in love with you, too. Goddammit, can’t you tell? Can’t you see how much I’m breaking?”
That dreaded stifling silence fell again, numbing everything as she gawked at me. My words didn’t seem to register, bouncing off a force field designed to protect her heart, but then they stabbed into awareness, and she crumpled in place, wincing and crying, shaking her head with panic. “What sort of cruel joke is this? You missed me in the forest so figured you’d get me back by telling me what you think I need to hear?”
There was no hope in her gaze, no joy like I hoped; only resignation and age-old grief. “I know you, Ren. I know you’d never let yourself think of me any differently than the way you always have. I’m your Little Ribbon. Untouchable. Protectable. Something to be adored but never touched. Oh no, never touched.”
I closed my eyes briefly, unprepared for the depth of pain her mistrust caused. “I don’t know how to make you believe me. I’m in love with you. I’m head over fucking heels for you. I have been for years. How can I make you see that?”
I spilled my darkest secret with my eyes still closed, and when I opened them again, she was closer to the door and farther from me, her gaze tormented with new thoughts. The same dangerous light she’d had when she cornered me with the idea of going to school the first time, of the suggestion we share a last name, of the fight when she didn’t want to go back to the city after months of bliss in the forest—glowed bright and savage, ready to destroy me.
I knew that look.
It was a look that petrified me because I never won against it.
My hand rose, imploring her not to run or do something we’d both regret. “Della…”
She shook her head again. “Don’t.”
“Whatever you’re thinking…stop it.”
She licked her lips, her forehead furrowing deep. “I just remembered what you said.”
“That I’m in love with you?”
“No. Before that. The truth.”
“That is the goddamn truth. I love—”
“Stop it, Ren! Okay, just stop it!” she shouted, her tone snippy and sharp. “I can’t deal with this. You’re spouting nonsense that makes me think you hit your head. And that’s after you admitted that you’ve been back for months. Months!” Her voice thinned until it was soundless. “You’ve been watching me, haven’t you? I wasn’t imagining it.”
I hung my head. “No, you weren’t.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
“How could you? How could you do that to me?”
I didn’t understand how I’d hurt her, but I put aside my questions and bowed to hers. “Because I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stand to be away from you.”
“But you left!” Her voice rose with a breakable octave. “You left me. You walked out that door.”
“I know.”
“Ugh!” She blinked back tears, her body wobbling with sadness and rage. “Want to know why I don’t believe that you’re in love with me? Because if you were, there is no way you could wait so long. Months, you’ve been back. Months where you watched me and made me think I was going insane. Remember all those times growing up when I knew you stared at me and I stared at you? Remember how in-tune and aware we were of each other?
“I knew that day when you needed help counting and charging up those hay-buying customers. I felt you looking at me over acres of paddock. I’ve woken up at night to you watching me. Just like you did with me. I’ve spent a lifetime learning how my skin prickles when you think of me. Did you forget that, Ren? Did you forget that I might have been lying to you for years, but you’ve just tried to do the same with me in the worst possible way?”
I shook my head. “I-I don’t understand. I needed time to figure out how to tell you—”
“No, you needed time to do your best to convince yourself it wasn’t real.”
“If you know it’s real, why are you arguing?”
“Because you didn’t come to me the moment you returned. The difference of loving someone and being in love, Ren, is loving someone can be full of obligation and self-denial. But being in love makes you selfish and greedy and hungry. It turns you into a self-serving monster because you can’t breathe unless you have the one person you need.”
She laughed coldly. “I know because I’ve lived in that emotion for so damn long. I’ve hated myself for how much I wanted you. What I did to myself thinking about you. How I used other boys to scratch the itch that was you. But you? You watch me from afar. You selfishly know I’m safe, watching me, studying me, all while I’m left wondering if you’re even still alive! How could someone who says they’re in love with another do that, huh? How could you stay away when it’s taking all I have not to rip off my towel and pull you down onto my bed even while I hate you?”