fucking destroyed me,” she seethed, every word hitting him like a knife to the chest. “I lost my best friend when Tory died, and then you abandoned me! You were my life for six years, Zev. Six years. I couldn’t imagine a day without you, and then suddenly there I was, completely and utterly alone. I didn’t know how to live in a world without you and Tory in it. I could barely get out of bed. I thought I’d die from grief. How could you do that to me?” Tears spilled from her eyes as she shouted, her words fast and venomous. “Do you have any idea what that was like? You never even explained why or gave me a chance to go with you. You said you had to leave, and then you were gone. Who does that?”
“Someone who was fucked up,” he snapped, angrier at himself than she could ever be, deserving of her every accusation. Struggling to rein in his anger, he gritted out, “Tory was like a sister to me, too. Her death messed me up on so many levels, I didn’t know how to climb out of the darkness that had consumed me. It was me who dragged Beau out to the party that night. I was the one who got him too drunk to drive, and when we found out about Tory, he dropped to his knees.” His gut seized with the memory. He paced as the long-held hurt tumbled out. “He just fucking collapsed. The guy I idolized, the brother who could take on the world, just fucking lost it. Then you—the girl I loved, the person I lived for—you were so broken, and I felt like that was on me, too. I was so mad at myself, so full of grief, I became a hateful, angry monster overnight. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see anything but devastation around me, and yeah, I know Tory’s death wasn’t my fault, or Beau’s fault. We didn’t cause the accident, and who the hell knows what would have happened if Beau had picked her up from the airport that night. We might have lost them both. But she was the love of his life, and in the blink of an eye she was gone.” His hands fisted and he closed the distance between them, needing her to hear the rest of his confession. “All I could think about from that second on was who I’d be and how I’d survive if I lost you, and I couldn’t fucking handle it.”
“But you walked out on me!” she yelled as tears streaked her cheeks. “You made sure you lost me.”
“I had to,” he said through clenched teeth, sadness and anger pounding inside him. “Goddamn it, Carly, don’t you see? I was so fucking scared, and I hated myself so much, I would have destroyed us. That carefree kid was gone. Every time I looked at you, all I could think about was losing you the way Beau had lost Tory, and I knew that if he couldn’t survive it, there was no way I could. You were my other half, the fucking blood that pumped through my veins.” Carly’s shoulders shook with sobs, but Zev couldn’t stop the truth from finally coming out. “We wouldn’t have survived Tory’s death as a couple because I couldn’t look at you without hearing a fucking voice in my head telling me that I could lose you at any second. I couldn’t stop hearing it. I was filled with rage and fear and I knew you’d hate who I’d become. I hated myself, Carly. I would’ve ruined you, and I couldn’t have lived with that.”
She dropped the wine bottle to the grass and shoved at his chest, pushing him away, then stalking forward and hollering in his face. “So you left to save yourself, and to hell with what it did to me?”
“No,” he said vehemently. “I thought you’d be better off without me.”
“Oh, right.” She scoffed through her tears. “Like I could ever be better off without the guy I’d loved my whole life?” She shoved him again, seething. “I waited for you to come back! I stared out my bedroom window night after night, sure you’d be back for me.”
His chest was so tight, he could only choke out, “Carly…”
“You said Beau collapsed? Well, guess what? So did I, on your parents’ front lawn. I ran to your house the next day, hoping and praying I could change