I’d hurt Miller. I’d chosen Matt over him. And yet…here he was. “You don’t have to hold me as I cry myself to sleep. I’ve never wanted anyone’s pity.”
“That’s not why I held you last night. I never stopped liking you, Brooklyn. You stopped liking me.”
“I never stopped liking you.” But I loved Matt. I loved him with every fiber of my being. He consumed me. But I never stopped liking Miller. “All I want to do is ask you to stay the night again. I don’t want you to get in trouble though.”
“I have a really hard time walking away from you when I know you’re hurting.”
“I’m okay, Miller. I’m going to be okay.”
“That didn’t sound convincing at all.”
I laughed. The noise sounded strange in my throat. And I realized I hadn’t laughed since Isabella fell through the ceiling. And for some reason tears were falling down my cheeks. I was suddenly happy that we were in a dark room. I didn’t know what else to say. Because I was seconds away from begging him to stay. I cleared my throat. “So it’ll just be you and me somewhereafter this. No nurses or anything. And no communication with the outside world.”
“And a virtual tutor,” he said.
Right.One that wasn’t allowed to see my face. “Completely isolated.”
“That’s going to make it even harder not to touch you.”
It felt like there was a knife in my chest. I missed Matt. Desperately. So why did I so badly want Miller to climb back into my bed? Why did everything hurt so damned much? I tried to wipe away my tears undetected, but I stupidly let out a sniffle.
“The thought of being alone with me makes you cry?” His voice was soft.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay all night. I want you to hold me and tell me everything’s going to be okay. But I shouldn’t want that. Because I’m engaged to someone else. Was engaged. I need to talk to Matt.” I hated how much I was crying. “I’m so confused.”
“It’s okay.” He climbed back into my bed and pulled me against his chest. “Like you said…you’re going to be okay.”
“But you didn’t believe me when I said it.”
“I’m saying it now though. And it’s kind of my job to make sure it comes true.”
Miller was too good to be true. I wanted to hold him close because I knew better than anyone that I never got to feel content for long. I just needed a few minutes to feel like I wasn’t falling apart.
We were both silent. Because he knew he shouldn’t be in my bed. And I knew I shouldn’t have started crying to make him feel obligated. But I was pretty sure neither of us wanted to move. He didn’t even care that I’d just soaked the front of his shirt with my tears. We just…stayed completely still.
“You said I wouldn’t want to know the specifics of the conversation you had with my dad,” I said, keeping my head resting on his chest. “But I do want to know. Can you tell me the whole story?”
“Brooklyn…”
“Please. I need to know what happened.”
He ran his thumb beneath my eye to help wipe away my tears. “He told me his plan to make you disappear. He asked if I wanted to be the one to go with you. And he let me know that he’d have to make it look like I’d died too. He told me upfront that he would make a scene about it in front of the rest of the staff.”
“You said yes even though you knew he’d hurt you?”
“It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to trust your life in the hands of someone else. I didn’t even hesitate. I said yes.”
Miller was the most selfless person I knew. He’d agreed to go with me right away? “And then what?”
“He said, ‘Right answer. Or else you’d be dead.’ And I didn’t know what he meant. But he made it pretty clear as a few of his thugs beat the shit out of me. I’m not sure which part of it was for show and what was real. But he seemed pissed.” He stopped talking like he was lost in his thoughts.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what else my dad said to him. Or how badly he’d been hurt. It was bad or else he’d turn the lights on. “And then what?”
He started absentmindedly drawing little circles on my back with his fingers. “They knocked me out. I woke up here too. End of story.”
“Why does that not seem like the end of the story?” It seemed like he’d skipped a whole lot of important details.
“Well, not the end exactly. How could it possibly be the end? If anything it feels like a new beginning.”
