She stopped talking and then turned to get out of the pool.
I grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her back. “And?”
“You were my friend before you were my everything,” she whispered. “And a part of me hoped that the Will Sutherland who used to sing me to sleep at night and chase the nightmares away still existed somewhere in that mature body of yours. A part of me believed the dream that the good ones, the really good ones, don’t change, they mature, they forgive, they move past the ugly even when it’s insurmountable. And maybe, a part of me, just needed a friend.”
I closed my eyes as every single thing I’d ever said to her, done to her, came crashing back down to earth, slamming me against the ground, stealing my breath.
“Ang.” My voice cracked. “I can’t ever be your friend.”
She hung her head. “Yeah. I know.”
“No. Not really. Because I’ve never wanted to be your friend, even when I said I did. It was all a lie.”
Her face twisted with pain. “I think I should go back inside now.”
“I would have fought for you.”
“I should have let you,” she whispered.
“Ang, there will never be a day in my life where I think I can ever be anything but your everything — and that’s the truth.”
“What?” She choked.
“I will always…” I licked my lips. “Always, want it all.”
I RAN AWAY.
Again.
This time to the bathroom instead of my doorless room.
I was too confused to keep crying.
Too tired from such an emotional day to even ask what the guy meant when he said he couldn’t be my friend yet needed to be my everything.
And a small part of me wanted to run back into his arms and offer him all that I had and see if he’d bite. See if he’d at least be tempted.
But I had nothing to offer.
Except a dirty past.
A shaky present.
An unknown future.
And guys like Will, they deserved the good girls, the ones with no demons chasing them down, the ones with no scars from needles. The ones who weren’t constantly showering in an effort to clean the sins away.
I started the shower.
And peeled the wet clothes from my body.
The bathroom door jerked open.
Will stood there, shirtless. His intense gaze moved over my skin like he was caressing me with his eyes. I didn’t cover up. There was no point. Because I wasn’t a girl who was ashamed of the current me, it was the past me I had a problem with.
“What if I was peeing?” I blurted.
His lips curved into a small smile. “Then I guess I would have asked if you needed toilet paper.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “And if I was all good on the TP?”
“Then I would have offered to turn on the shower, find you a towel, or just make sure you were okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not,” he said quickly, the beginning of his sentence colliding with my end.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed. “But I will be. And I’m not going to do drugs, I don’t do that anymore. Apparently, the new me is even more emotional and confused than before, and I’m going to feel all the things — even when they hurt like hell.”
“Life hurts, Ang.” He took a step farther, then closed the door behind him, locking us in. “So, feel it.”
“I don’t think I can tell the good from the bad anymore. Everything is alive, like this wire that refuses to stop electrocuting me over and over and over again.”
Will cupped my face with both of his hands, his lips hovered an inch from mine. “So let it burn.”
I sucked in a breath.
And Will Sutherland, the Will Sutherland of my dreams, kissed my tears.
Warm lips grazed each cheek before he pulled back, his eyes alight with something I couldn’t quite decipher, something that I knew if I tried to analyze would most likely leave me even more emotional and confused than before, and I’d already wasted too many of those tears on him.
He didn’t deserve to steal anymore.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice was barely above a whisper, those intense eyes never leaving mine.
“Can it be when I’m clothed?”
As if remembering that I was completely naked, his entire countenance changed. His eyes flashed as he made a sound in the back of this throat, all before taking a step away from me and nodding. “Yeah, Ang, it can wait.”
I turned my back to him.
I still felt him.
The door was still closed.
“Is your plan to stay here the whole time?” I tried to keep my voice light. “I already told you, I don’t have anything in here.”
“That’s not why I’m staying.”