My back thuds against the pillar and all I can do is gasp at the impact. More than the impact though, it’s the fact I have nowhere else to go now. Not even when he’s right here, so close and getting closer as he leans down. He rests his palm on the pillar, his fingers splayed wide, and dips his head, bringing our faces only inches from each other.
And my mind, without my volition, goes back six months. Which would’ve been fine because it’s not really unusual for me, but right now, I’m thinking about that one particular moment before everything fell apart.
When we were just like this, so close, our faces aligned. When I could smell his sweet breaths and thought they reminded me of strawberries. When I thought Itastedstrawberries on my tongue. The fact that for a second back there, it felt like he was going to kiss me, and how I was going to let him. How I was waiting for it to happen.
I try not to think about that moment. I try to steer clear of all the feelings that invokes. All the fluttery, longing,painfulfeelings.
“What sickness?” I ask in a voice I’m not very proud of, all breathless and fragile.
He keeps studying my features before glancing down at my mouth. “The sickness where you have trouble staying away from me.”
My lips tingle as I flick my eyes over to his. “You’re the one w-who’s having trouble letting me go.”
“Only because you don’t want me to.”
“You know, you’re not really a mind reader,” I remind him of our conversation that night.
“No, justyourmind reader,” he repeats.
“Can you just step back?” I try again.
“You forgot the magic word.”
“Please,” I say begrudgingly.
He hums before saying, “A-plus for effort. But again, as much as I like that word coming out of your pink lips, I kinda forgot the other sickness you have.”
“What?”
“Where you use those same pink lips to lie your pretty ass off.”
I flinch and my eyes skitter up. “I don’t?—”
“So before you start spouting off lies, let me tell you exactly what happened. You saw a girl writhing on my lap, hated the fuck out of it, wanted to take her place. So you did what you always do. Play your schoolgirl games with me instead of using your head and staying the fuck away from me and my business.”
“She wasn’t going to help you,” I blurt out, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“What?”
I don’t know if I should say it. Actually, IknowI shouldn’t. He’s made himself plenty clear where he stands when it comes to me, but I don’t give a fuck. I care about him. I do. And as much as I know he’ll bounce back from it, I also know something awful happened to him six months ago. Plus I was there. I saw him get beaten up. I saw him unconscious. Ihaveto say something. And he can take it like the big man he is. So I lift my chin, declare, “With your pain.”
A tight clench of his jaw is his only response.
“That’s why you came here, didn’t you? That’s what you were looking for. To forget. To move on. That’s why you’re alwayswith all these girls. I saw it. Iseeit. I read the articles. You’re with a different girl every night ever since…”
When Lively said it was all over the news, what happened at that parking lot six months ago, she was right. In fact, it’s still in the news. Not just the incident, but what he’s doing to get over it. They say his focus isn’t on the game anymore. That he’s partying a lot, almost every night. They say if he was a playboy before, who went through girls like water, he’s even worse now. These days his relationships, or rather his one-night stands, don’t even last through the night. Some nights he changes girls by the hour. And while it all seems like great fodder for gossip, what it reallyisispainful. It's so fucking painful that this is what he’s doing to move on. This is how he’s dealing with what happened.
Especially after everything he’s done.
“I know,” I go on, taking a deep breath. “I know what you did.”
His face is hard but blank, no sign of life, let alone a single expression in sight. But I don’t get deterred. I’ve already started down this path and I’m going to keep at it. I clutch the tray to my chest, not as a shield this time but as something to hold on to. I press my spine into the pillar as well, not to get away from him but for support because my legs are about to give out.
So his engagement with his girlfriend Isadora? It was a sham. He only proposed to her—in front of everyone no less, in front of his twin brother—so she could get the man she really loved, his twin brother. Because while he was in love with her, she was in love with Stellan the whole time. And when he found out about it, he decided to help Isadora get Stellan.
“Forher,” I say, my voice trembling. “I know it was all a sham. You getting down on one knee. You proposing in front of everyone. You did it for her. You did it so… she could get what she wanted all along. Your twin brother.”
Isn’t it the craziest thing in the whole world? Proposing to a girl you love just so she could get the mansheloves. Faking the engagement with her just to make sure she gets her heart’s desire while totally disregarding yours. But that’s exactly what he did, and he kept up the charade for months. Formonths, he pretended. He kept the truth to himself, never shared it with anyone. Never let it show there was something going on.
