“Rosa and Carl won’t be home for a while,” I said, twisting my fingers around my keys. “You want to go hang out there?”
His brows furrowed and for a moment I thought he was going to say no. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
We didn’t talk on the drive and my nerves were stretched thin by the time we headed inside. I dropped my bag by the steps. “Um, do you want anything to drink?” I asked, walking toward the living room.
“Nah.” He followed slowly, stopping by the china cabinet to check out the soap carvings. “I’m good.”
I dropped my keys on the island and went to the fridge, grabbing myself a Coke. A tremor coursed through my arms as I headed back to the living room. I sat on the couch and started to reach for the remote. “We could watch a movie or—”
“Actually, I want to talk to you.”
“Oh.” I toyed with the tab of my soda. “Okay.”
He walked around the coffee table and sat on the couch—on the third cushion, putting an entire cushion between us. My fingers stilled on the tab. “I don’t know how to say this,” he said, resting his elbows on his knees. He slowly shook his head. “I really care about you, Mallory. I really do.”
Oh, God.
I put the soda on the end table before I dropped it. “I really care about you. I...I love you, Rider.”
His jaw flexed. “Yesterday was a mistake.”
My lips parted on a sharp inhale. I didn’t hear him right. There was no way I heard him right.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy what...what we did. I do—I did, but this can’t go on. We can’t get together. Not like this,” he said in that same flat tone. “I’m sorry.”
For several moments all I could do was stare at him. I tried to process what he was saying, but the pounding blood in my head made it difficult. “I...I don’t understand.”
“We can’t be together,” he repeated, still not looking at me. A crack fissured my chest, and I sucked in air, because it felt so real, a line of fiery pain. “We can be friends, but that’s...that’s all.”
“I don’t want to be just friends with you,” I blurted out as I jerked forward. “You said you loved me. Just yesterday.” My voice caught as the knot expanded in my throat. “Like a little over twenty-four hours ago. I don’t understand.”
He placed his palm to his forehead. “I do love you.”
“Then why are you saying you don’t want to be with me?” I put my hand on the couch, grounding myself, because it felt like it was moving. Like the entire world was trembling. “That doesn’t...make any sense.”
“I just can’t be with you. It’s over.”
Then the strangest thing happened. An odd, almost suffocating feeling of relief hit me. It was over. I could just go back to the way—
I stopped.
Everything stopped.
That wasn’t me anymore. I didn’t give up and give in just because it was easy. I wasn’t her anymore.
“This is for the best, Mouse.”
“Don’t call me Mouse,” I snapped as fury flooded my system, overtaking the welling hurt and washing it away. “I am not Mouse. That girl doesn’t exist anymore.”
Rider recoiled as if I’d slapped him. “Mallory...”
“No. Don’t look at me like I’ve hurt you.” I rose from the couch, hands curling into fists. “You need to give me a better explanation than just because. You owe me that.”
He lifted his chin, his eyes bright as he finally looked at me. The shadows beneath them were deeper, darker. “Don’t you get it?”
“No. Obviously I don’t.”
Rider stared at me for a moment. “You deserve better than me.”
My mouth dropped open.
“And you shouldn’t be fighting with Rosa and Carl because of me. They took you in, gave you the world, and I’m not going to come between you,” he said, and I think he kept talking, but I really wasn’t hearing him.
You deserve better than me?
Wasn’t that the same thing Paige had said before she said the opposite? It was.
“Are you serious?” I cut him off. “Are you really serious right now?”
He swallowed. “Yes, Mou—Mallory, I’m serious.”
I laughed, but there wasn’t any humor to the sound whatsoever. “So let me get this straight. You’re breaking up with me because it’s what’s best for me. Because you don’t want to come between me and Rosa and Carl?” There were no pauses in my words now. “It’s because of what happened this weekend.”
Straightening, he raised his hands. “It’s more than that, Mallory. You and I—we aren’t the same. We used to be, but not anymore. You’re going in one direction and I’m staying the same. That’s how it’s going to be.”
My hands unclenched. Funny. For the longest time it felt like everyone around me was going places while I sat, immobile and stuck, but this whole time I really had been moving and it had been Rider who wasn’t.
“You’re so wrong,” I breathed.
His brows shot up. “Seriously?”