Fire courses through me, wild and unstoppable. I want to leap out of the bed and slap him so hard that his head pops off his shoulders like a rock ‘em sock ‘em robot. How dare he make what happened to me about him. I was the one who got hurt. I was the one who suffered in silence. I was the one who lived with the fear and the panic and the nightmares. “I saved you from it,” I hiss. “I didn’t tell you so you wouldn’t have to worry. I didn’t want—”
I stop short when a tear streaks down Callan’s face. I’m completely and utterly stunned. Callan angrily wipes the tear away from his cheek with the back of his hand, scowling. “You had no right. You made me feel worthless. I didn’t need saving from the truth, Coralie. I needed to know you were okay, and all that time you weren’t. That was basically my fault.” He stands, scrubbing his hands over his face. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry, okay? Sorry I sold that picture of you. Sorry I didn’t see the truth when it was probably staring me in the face. I was so caught up with taking care of Mom that maybe I wasn’t seeing things as clearly as they were back then. But don’t ever pretend that we weren’t for real, Coralie. Don’t ever pretend that what we felt wasn’t a lifelong, consuming, powerful thing, because I know you still fucking feel it.”
“How? How the hell do you think you know that about me, Callan?” I can hardly speak. I feel like screaming at him, pounding my fists against his chest, but I don’t have the energy. My pain overtakes me, bringing tears to my own eyes. I rail against them—I don’t want to be weak—but this moment has been a long time coming. I might as well be trying to turn back the sands of time.
“Because!” Callan snatches up a box from the top of his desk and tosses it onto the bed. The lid slides off, and inside there are stacks and stacks of pictures of us together, holding hands, kissing, pictures of me sleeping, me laughing, me poking my tongue out… so many pictures. “I wake up sometimes and I can’t fucking breathe, Coralie. Just like you do. I walk down the street and I see you everywhere. Just like you see me. I find myself inside some woman I just fucking met and it’s your mouth I feel on mine, your hands I feel on my body, your voice I hear calling out my fucking name. You can’t tell me that you’re not imagining me inside you every single goddamn time you have sex with someone else, Coralie. You just can’t, because I know it’s not true.” He paces up and down, running his hands through his hair, his eyes unblinking, fixed on the floor in front of him.
If I tell him he’s right, it will be like admitting something final and terrible to myself. Admitting that I’m never going to move on from him, no matter where I am or who I’m with. I will always need him. I’m not ready to do that.
“It’s not…not true, Callan. I’m sorry.”
Callan quits pacing, turning to stare at me. He looks like he’s growing frustrated. “Again,” he says. “Again, I call bullshit.”
“We’re not in high school anymore, Cal.”
“I’m fully aware of that.”
“Then you can’t just call bullshit.”
“I can. If you don’t still love me, Coralie, what the fuck are you doing here? Why did you let yourself into the house and get into my fucking bed, where you knew I’d find you?”
I fling back the covers, jumping up so I can stand face to face with him. “I came here to ask you to leave, okay? I don’t want you here. I don’t need you here. You’re…”
He steps closer, so that his chest is pressed flush against mine. “I’m what?” he growls.
“You’re making this harder. Even harder than it has to be!”
He sighs, bowing his head slightly. He’s so much taller than me. Always has been. He seems bigger now, though, somehow more imposing. I feel like he could absorb me if he really wanted to, fold me up into his arms and press me into him until there was nothing of me left. “You’re doing that all by yourself, Coralie Taylor,” he whispers. “Fighting is hard. Being angry is hard. Hating yourself and hating me is hard. And you know what? Lying to yourself is hard, too, because you know the truth as well as I do. Refusing to admit that to yourself must be the most difficult thing of all.”
“Fuck you, Callan.” I slap my hands against his chest, trying to push him away, but he grabs hold of me by the wrists. “Let me go.”
He slowly shakes his head from side to side. “I made that mistake once already, bluebird. I won’t be making it again.”
“Then what, you’re going to kidnap me? Chain me to your damn bed and force me to love you?” I try to pull away again, but he has a firm hold on me. If it were anyone else restraining me like this, I would be a screaming wreck right now. I’d be kneeing him in the balls and looking for something sharp and pointy to stab him with.
“Quit it,” Callan snaps. “That’s enough. If you really didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t have come in the first place. And you knew before you even stepped foot inside the house that I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way you seriously thought I was going to leave. So that means you just wanted me.”