Page 24 of Stay

“Yes,” she whispers, before plucking a chip off her plate.

Lust wars with anger inside me.

I want to punish her. I want her to grovel. I want her to tell me how she could leave and never contact me again. Because I know she kept up with Jenna. Jenna told me. I only have three friends I’m still in contact with from college—Jenna, Jared, and my old coach.

If Haley could keep up with Jenna, why couldn’t she have done the same with me?

You’re no better. You didn’t even try to reach out to her.

Fuck that. I didn’t do it because she didn’t want it.

Anger wins.

“Am I supposed to pretend you didn’t ghost me and leave a hole in my chest the day you drove away?” The words claw their way out of my mouth, leaving a terrible taste behind.

Our food arrives. “Let me know if I can get you guys anything else.”

“Thanks, Mandy.” I’ve lost my appetite.

I lean across the table and tap my finger against it. “Look at me, Haley.”

She doesn’t.

“So help me, Angel, if you don’t fucking look at me I’ll—”

“I’m not sorry for ghosting you, Cole.” Her gaze lifts. “I’m sorry for taking so long to find my way back to you.” Her hands shake as she lifts her glass and takes a sip of her soda. “I needed to leave everything behind. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

Words fail me.

“I had to work on myself. I was so toxic back then. And if I…” She carefully places her glass back down and folds her hands in her lap. “If I had any chance of deserving you, I needed to make sure I was worth it.”

Why can’t I find my tongue and use it right now?

“I had to work on myself, as well as make sure what I wanted was really right for me, before I could work on us.”

“Us?” The one word I manage to croak out feels foreign on my lips. “There was never an us.”

She cringes. “Yes, there was.”

“No, Haley, you wouldn’t allow it.”

Her chest looks like it caves in with her next exhale. “Cole, I—”

“I wanted to marry you. I loved you,” I say, slamming my hand on the table. “And you knew it and still fucking left.”

She shakes her head faster and faster. “I never knew any of that.”

How could she not? “Bullshit.”

She slams her hand on the table and our plates rattle. “You never once said you loved me, Cole.”

She’s right. I didn’t. “That’s because you would have left me even faster if I had and I couldn’t risk it.”

“And for that, I’m being punished now?”

“You don’t know the first thing about punishment, Haley.” I lean in, jabbing my finger on the table, punctuating my every point. “You didn’t suffer like me. You didn’t have to hold your tongue like me. You didn’t have to stand there and watch the love of your life drive away like what we had meant nothing. You didn’t lose weight because you sunk into such a depression, you couldn’t eat or sleep for weeks. You didn’t—”

“I can’t do this.” Haley shoves her notebook into her bag.

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