Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
That was what he thought…
“No, Hendrix.” Tears stung my eyes. I never thought he would blame himself, and it made me hate myself a little more. “You’re perfect. You’ve always made me happy.” He still did.
“I just need a reason why you did it.”
I swiped at my tears, trying to think of something, anything I could tell him that would straddle the line of truth and lie.
“I have regretted that moment every second of every day for two years, Hendrix. Maybe it was stupidity. Or naivety…” I was stupid for letting Johan through the front door. Naïve in thinking a man who paid for sex would have any boundaries about who he got it from so long as there was cash involved.
“Just know, I’m sorry,” I whispered, fighting the anger and hatred that rose up at the injustice of it all. I’d done nothing wrong. He’d done nothing wrong. Yet, we were the ones paying the price. “That no one has ever loved anyone more…” Than I still loved him. But I couldn’t tell him that. It wasn’t fair.
His fingers swept over the strings. “When Jessica told me you were pregnant…” Another solemn note. “I took this down to the pawn shop and traded it for a ring.”
His gaze lifted to mine. And God, did it hurt. That guitar was the only thing he had, and then I’d told him that the baby wasn’t his. I had lied and said I’d cheated on him, as though he meant nothing.
“You giving it back to me was just…” He swallowed. “It fucking hurt.”
Tears tracked down my cheeks. I was so close to blurting the truth, just to put Hendrix out of his misery. I’d have done anything to keep him out of jail, but seeing him like this, hearing this, felt akin to a slow, painful death. One that was killing us both.
“Hendrix…” My chest burned, and ugly sobs threatened to break free. The tears wouldn’t stop. The pain wouldn’t stop. The guilt would–not–stop. I threw my arms around his neck, unsure whether I was trying to console him or myself. “I’m so sorry.”
He shifted the guitar out of his lap and wrapped his arms around me tight, comforting me, holding me together when I didn’t deserve it.
Seconds passed, moments where he held me so close while I pretended everything could be fixed.
“I don’t like us like this.” He pulled back, cupping my face in his hands while his thumbs swiped at my tears. “I actually really fucking hate it,” he whispered.
The broken, confused look on his face was almost too much to take.
Sucking in a shuddering breath, I wrapped my fingers around his wrists. “Me too.”
“Me three, you sick fucks.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Zepp, lingering in the open doorway, an unamused look on his face.
His attention shifted to Hendrix. “You still coming to Wolf’s or what?”
“Yeah.” Hendrix let go of my face, eyes searching mine before he frowned. “I’m coming.”
Then, without another word, he got up and grabbed his shoes, leaving me alone on his bed.
The front door closed a few seconds later, and I should have gotten up and gone back to my room, but I couldn’t. So, I lay on his bed, surrounded by his scent, and cried for everything we’d both lost.
He was going to ask me to marry him.
He had pawned his guitar…
The tears came harder.
I’d gone two years without Hendrix, and it had been awful. I didn’t know how I was supposed to survive a lifetime without him.
I’d told myself I couldn’t be with him, kept us apart, and for what? So, he wouldn’t do something that would get him sent to jail and taken away from me.
He was already away from me. I was keeping him away from me. And it wasn’t helping anything.
He still cared. I still cared. And he’d still kill Johan if he found out.
The only thing that stopped me from running after him and begging him to forgive me and be with me right then and there was the thought of looking at him five, ten, twenty years from now and knowing I’d lied. Knowing he would always think I once had betrayed him. There was no way that wouldn’t change things, wouldn’t burrow into his brain and taint the way he saw me. No way to erase the hurt and distrust I’d just seen in his eyes.
He was angry, but more than that, he was broken.
My phone pinged with a message.
* * *
Satan: Friends?
* * *
After all the times I’d told him I wanted to be friends, that one word shouldn’t have struck such a deep blow.
Hendrix was finally over me, just as I’d realized I would never get over him.
* * *
Me: Friends
Chapter 34
HENDRIX
Thursday morning, the cheerleaders had vomited Dayton Pride crap all over the halls. Glittery banners. Streamers and ribbons. God, I hated this school.