I slow down, approaching her cautiously. “Are you okay?” I ask softly.
“You need to leave, Rogan.”
“Not without you.”
“I’m going home. Alone.”
Alone. A lurch of my heart.
I gulp.
“What happened?”
Her eyes spit fire. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know.” Her voice is low and calm, but there’s venom in it. She’s livid, but I can tell how hurt she is, too. It slices between my ribs, through cartilage and muscle, right into my heart, like a scalpel.
“I swear to God, I don’t know. I don’t know what I did to hurt you, baby, but you have to know I’m sorry. I’ll fix it if you let me. Just tell me what I did. Tell me what happened.”
She glares up at me. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I looked up after the fight and you were gone. Then when I saw you in the hall outside the locker room, you were so pale. I must’ve missed it when I was coming for you. You have to know I’d never let anyone hurt you. Never.”
She makes a noise, a strangled noise like a wounded animal. She’s struggling to hang on to her anger, but she’s struggling hard. She wants to just be mad, but I can see that somehow I’ve ripped her heart out. Even though I don’t know what I did.
“Stop it, Rogan. Please. Don’t make me relive it. Just let me go. We don’t belong together.”
Her words cut like pieces of shattered glass. “Please don’t say that.” I knew that we might have some problems trying to make this work, but I was willing to try whatever I could. Anything. And I’d only do that if I thought we really belonged together. Which I do. But then to hear her say that we don’t . . .
I swallow hard. I search for the patience to handle this delicately, like I know she needs me to. What I want to do is pick her up and carry her out of here and then sit her down and make her talk to me, but that won’t work with Katie. In fact, if anything, it would only push her farther away. So I’m going slow. I’m being patient. As difficult as it is, she’s worth it.
“I don’t believe that,” I confess. “And I didn’t think you did either. What changed your mind?”
Her chin starts to tremble. “Haven’t you done enough? Do you really need to hear me say it?”
“I guess I do.”
She stares at me for several long seconds, a thousand emotions swirling in her eyes. But then I see her ball her fingers into tight fists and I know her anger is taking the front seat again.
THIRTY-THREE
Katie
I reach for calm. I grasp at control. I search for distance. “I shouldn’t have been with you anyway. You’re a fighter, for God’s sake. Watching you pound your fists into that guy tonight just brought back too many memories for me. I don’t need violent men in my life. I should’ve trusted my gut and stayed away from you from the first day that I met you.”
“My fists?” I try not to let the look on Rogan’s face affect me. He looks like I physically slapped him. “God, Katie, I would never, ever hurt you. Ever!” He raises his big hands up in front of him. “These hands will never touch you in anger. I’d rather die than see fear or pain on your face. How could you think otherwise?”
It burns in my chest like acid, that he could still, after all this, make me feel anything but disgust for him. And yet he does. He looks heartbroken that I would even suggest such a thing. And seeing him this way hurts me. Even though I hate him right this minute, and even though what he’s done is unforgiveable, I still don’t want to see him hurt.
“I’m not saying you would ever hit me. I’m just saying that I can’t watch things like that. I can’t cheer you on while you beat the crap out of another human being for money or fame or beautiful women. Or for whatever other reasons you do it.”
“I told you why I fight, Katie.”
“I know, but . . .”
I trail off, hoping he’ll just take that as enough explanation and go. Just go.
But he doesn’t.
“That’s not it, though. Or at least that’s not all. I saw you in the hallway. You turned so pale. I saw it. Something else happened.”
My stomach turns in on itself, like it’s going to eat a hole all the way through my spine, leaving me hollow in the middle. As hollow as I feel.
“Everything happened. Everything happened and everything fell apart.” It kills me that my voice is so deplorably small. Once again, my anger has abandoned me. As quick as that, as quick as his question. The agony of betrayal is the only emotion available to me now. Even when I’d rather hold on to my fury, I can’t find it beneath all the hurt. “I watched you pose with two women, like some sick love affair. I watched you smile with the man who had my case dismissed as an accident. And then I watched you have your picture taken with the person who set my car on fire.” Rogan’s brows knit together for a few seconds before he pales beneath his tan. I see how my words affect him, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t give him an inch or I’ll crumble. “And then, as if that weren’t enough, Victoria played her hand and exposed my scars for all the world to see. Scars that she said you told her about.”