“And you’re just now deciding this? You seemed to have a different attitude last night . . . and this morning.”
“There’s never been a chance for us. Don’t you see that?” He waved his arms, some of his austere facade cracking as his frustration bled out. “We were just fooling ourselves, Briar.”
She shook her head. “I—-I was willing to try—-”
“Consider it tried,” he said, taking another step away from where she stood in front of the bed, like he couldn’t wait to escape. “You’re not the kind of girl who gets involved with a man like me.”
Her chin went up. She fought against the wave of pain rolling through her. “Maybe you’re right.”
He hesitated, looking at her oddly, and she gave herself a pat on the back for catching him off guard. Did he want her to plead and beg? No. She would reach him a different way. With the truth.
“Today my sister told me I was just like my mother.” At his silent stare, she continued, “She said that because my mother married my father. And she never left him even though he beat her and humiliated her and made her every day a misery. Even though she lived in fear of his voice, she stayed. She stayed and made us stay, too. She still stays with him even though we’ve offered her a place to live. A home with either one of us. She stays with him. This dangerous, abusive man.” Emotion bubbled up in her chest, threatening to overtake her, but she held on.
He finally spoke, “You never told me—-”
“About my father? Why would I? He’s not part of my life anymore. He doesn’t deserve to be remembered but I’m telling you now. Maybe I didn’t go to prison, but I know what it’s like to live every day waiting to be free, waiting to escape a shitty existence. I know about abusive men.”
He closed the space separating them and cupped her cheek. “Your sister is wrong. I would never hurt you, Briar.”
“You’re right. I’m not my mother. But you’re leaving me now because you think you’re the same as him . . . this thing I’ve been careful to stay away from.”
“Briar . . . you’re smart enough to see—-”
“Smart enough to know you,” she quickly cut in, triumph flashing through her at making her point. “I’m not my mother and you’re not my father.”
His hand dropped from her face. “I never worried that I would hurt you. It’s the rest of the world I worry about. I never planned to kill that boy all those years ago. I just wanted the truth out of him. Justice for Katie. It could happen again. I could lose control. Around you, I feel that way. If anyone ever hurt you—-” He stopped and shook his head. “That’s why this ends here.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” she insisted, even though she knew as she uttered the words that they would have little impact. His mind was made up.
“You’re not hearing me,” he growled, his eyes growing more distant. Cold, shuttered blue. He was already gone from her. She was talking to air. “I’ve got to be in control now . . . I can’t be that kid I was all those years ago. With you, I feel like him again.” He motioned between the two of them. “This . . . us . . . is me out of control.”
She sucked in a deep breath and angled her head, truly hearing what he was saying even if he did not. “So what you’re saying is that I am no good for you.”
Her words hung between them, a truth that felt as awful as teeth sinking in, latching onto muscle and sinew, striking bone and sending pain vibrating through her. This wasn’t about him being so fucking noble and letting her go because he wasn’t good enough for her.
He thought she was bad for him.
He looked angry and a little bewildered. “I didn’t say that—-”
“Yes. You did.” Essentially that was it. The truth.
She backed away, sipping air into lungs that felt raw. “I get it now. It doesn’t matter what I think or feel. It doesn’t matter that I might be a little in love with you.”
As soon as the words escaped, she knew they were a lie. There was no might. She was a lot in love with him, and she stood before him exposed, her heart bared and bleeding.
“Briar.” He said her name gently, pitiably. As though she were a dumb girl who went and fell in love with him when he didn’t want that. When there was no chance in hell he would stick around and love her back. God. She was that dumb girl. “You don’t feel that way. This was sex. Good sex. Sometimes that gets confusing—-”
“No,” she snapped. “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot who doesn’t know the difference between sex and love. I know what I feel.”
For a moment he looked like he might touch her again. If he touched her, she would fall apart.
But he didn’t.
“And,” she added hoarsely, the words sliding from a throat that felt raw with burning tears, ready to fall, “I know what someone looks like when he’s running away. Because he’s scared.”
“I am scared,” he admitted, his jaw locked tight. “Scared of making the same mistakes and going back in that box again.”