and taking her by the wrist. She gulps a lungful of air when I take her by surprise and pull her toward me.
“I want to tell you, Demi. I want to tell you so fucking bad. I want to tell you everything.” I stare into her crystal baby blues, missing the way she used to look at me back when we were happy. Before everything turned to shit. When we were just a couple of kids with our whole lives ahead of us.
“Then tell me.” Her chest rises and falls. She smells like a hospital room, a sobering reminder that she spent her day by his side.
“I need more time.”
Her jaw hangs, and then she scoffs. “More time? Are you kidding me, Royal? Seven years wasn’t enough?” Demi yanks her wrist from my hand. “Please go. We’re done here.”
Eleven
Demi
* * *
I have to bite the inside of my lip to keep from lashing out at him. All I want to do is scream at him for wasting my time, for squandering away the last seven years, for showing up like some valiant knight with shitty timing.
He lingers by the door, stepping into his grubby work boots. He smells like a garage, and his nail beds are black. Once upon a time, he was supposed to go to college with Derek, finish with law school, and then work at my father’s practice.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he says.
I can’t look at him.
“Not yet, anyway,” he adds. “I’m just asking you to let me at least try to make some of this up to you.”
“You can’t.”
“Demi.” He moves closer. I turn away. It’s juvenile, I know. “You can’t even begin to imagine how many nights I laid awake thinking about you. About us. About old times.”
I focus on a salt fleck on the floor of the foyer. It must’ve been tracked in from outside, when I sprinkled ice melt on the steps earlier.
“If I could go back,” he says. “I’d make different choices. I never would’ve left that night. I just thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Was there someone else?” I ask the heaviest question of them all, the one that’s lingered over me like a dark cloud. It’s the only plausible answer to this ridiculous question. My broken, teenage heart could only ever accept the explanation that he left because he loved someone more than he loved me.
“God, no.” Royal cups my face with his stained hands, turning it to face him. “Never.”
Our eyes meet.
“I don’t understand.” I pull his hands from my face. “Why can’t you just tell me?”
Royal gives me a nervous smirk, a dimple popping up on his right cheek—the one I used to kiss when we were younger.
“Maybe I’m scared,” he says, puffing his chest out like I needed any kind of reminder that he’s all man now.
“Scared of what?”
“Scared you might look at me differently. Think of me differently.”
“I loved you more than you could’ve possibly known,” I say. “There wasn’t anything you could’ve done back then to change that. I was stupid in love with you.”
His lips tighten, and he offers a pained smile.
“I want to tell you, Demi. You deserve to know. I owe you that much.” His words come rushed, and he licks his lower lip. “But I’m not ready, and neither are you.”
I offer a sarcastic “ha,” step away, and slap my hand against my side.
“Fine, then,” I say. “If this is all the closure I’m ever going to get, so be it. Can’t force you to tell me anything, so I won’t waste my time trying.”
“Closure?” He lifts a single eyebrow. “Closure means we’re done forever. Means we’re never going to see each other again.”
“Exactly.”
I didn’t wait seven damn years for him to stand in my home and refuse to give me the answer I deserve. All those years, I’d painted him as some kind of idyllic fantasy. He represented youth, and carefree summers, and can’t-sleep-love. Happily-ever-afters and everything little girls dream of. He was a cool breeze on a hot day. Electric kisses and mischievous firsts. An addiction I couldn’t get out of my system.
And I still can’t.
“I want to see you again,” he says.
My gaze snaps to his, fitting perfectly. The thundering heartbeats in my chest threaten to knock me over with each boom. I hate that his six little words so easily command my attention.
“Maybe I don’t deserve it,” he says, “but it doesn’t change the fact that I still want it.”
I fold my arms.