Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104239 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104239 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“I wasn’t trying to get rid of you. I was letting you go. You have a life in front of you now.” This is for her own good. I need to remember this is all for her. I should’ve known there’d be one final challenge, one last temptation.
“But that’s not the life I want. I already told you before we left Corium. You’re what I want.”
“That’s just what you think. That’s not necessarily what you need. You’ll find out if you only give yourself a chance.”
“I don’t want to. Why does everybody keep telling me what I need? I know what I need. And it’s you. Like I said, it doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing. All that matters is you.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and her chin quivers as she shrugs. “I can’t help it. I love you. All the money in the world doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if I have to live the rest of my life without you. It might be wrong, and I probably sound stupid, but I don’t care. I finally found what I really want. Stop trying to give me a bunch of other things that never once crossed my mind.”
“They never crossed your mind because you didn’t know it was possible. Now it is. Why me? Out of every other man in the world, why am I the one you can’t let go of? Don’t you know I’m no good for you?”
“Maybe that’s how you see it, but it’s not the truth I know.”
“And what’s that truth?”
“The truth I know is you’re the only person I’ve ever met who makes me feel like I belong somewhere.”
It might hurt, but she needs to hear it. “You’ve thought that before.”
She winces, but the moment passes quickly. “That’s fair. You’re right. I did think that. But I was naïve. And desperate for somebody to care about me. This isn’t the same situation. I would have done anything for Nash as long as it meant no longer being alone. Maybe having a future. The idea that somebody could actually care about me. But that’s just it—he was only an idea. He never once showed me that he actually cared—if anything, I kept telling myself I needed to make him care. If I would just make him happy, things would be different. I never actually enjoyed our time together—I spent the whole time trying to make him like me, doing things I didn’t want to do because I was afraid to say no. But that’s not how it is with you. When we’re together, even when it hurts a little or when I don’t know what you’re thinking or what’s coming next, I don’t feel forced, like I have to endure it—or else. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear what you think you’re saying.”
“Stop it.” It comes out sharp, and any softness in her eyes hardens all at once. “I don’t know where you got this idea that you need to save me from you, but I don’t buy it, and I’m tired of it. Stop acting like I don’t know what I’m talking about. For whatever fucked-up reason, something about you works well with something about me. Like we belong together. And you’re not going to convince me otherwise out of some misguided need to, like, save me.” She makes air quotes around the words, sneering. “I don’t need that.”
“Then what do you need?”
“You. Just you. And you need me, too, whether or not you want to admit it. Because I love you. I see the good in you even if you don’t want to admit it. You would rather send me away than be with me because you think you’re doing me a favor. You’re that convinced you’re no good. But bad people don’t care what they’re doing to somebody. Don’t you get that? If you were really so bad, you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t even think about it.”
“I’ve done that in the past. Many times.” As she sputters, looking for a way to argue, I remember there’s something she doesn’t know yet. What better time to drive the point home? “That blond woman. The one you were so interested in. Her name is Charlotte. She’s Aspen’s birth mother.”
Her eyes fly open wide.
“I hurt her badly. I’m not proud of it. I was such a fucked-up piece of shit that she couldn’t even tell me she was pregnant. She knew how I would react. Then she disappeared from my life, and I didn’t care enough to find out what had happened. She was supposed to be dead, but it turns out she isn’t. And I can barely face her when I remember my cruelty. That’s what I would do to you. I would only keep hurting you.”
“You don’t know that. If anything, you prove my point.”