Page 90 of Love Him Like Water

And maybe he sensed that.

He just sat there, being the rock he’d always been for me. Steady and stalwart. Unbreakable, even as I broke apart.

I couldn’t tell you how long we sat there like that. As the sobs rose from somewhere deep inside of me, the intensity of them rocking my body as the tears burned down my cheeks, soaked through Nico’s shirt.

“No one,” Nico finally said as my sobs became sniffles, as enough of the pain escaped to make it possible to think past it, “And I mean no fucking one,” he went on, “is ever fucking worth crying like that over.”

“You don’t—“

“I know I don’t understand,” he cut me off, voice a little softer, a bit sadder. The words were hanging there in the air. Because you wouldn’t talk to me. “But I don’t need to understand to know that pain like that isn’t right. That anyone who causes that isn’t someone deserving of how much you clearly care.”

“I’ve tried so hard,” I said, blinking back more tears.

“Tried what?”

To stick it out? To keep enduring? To convince myself that it was going to get better even when there were no signs of that.

“Tried to wait,” I said finally.

“Wait for what?”

“For… for him to care about me,” I choked out.

A growl moved through Nico’s chest, and I wanted to smile at his older brother protectiveness. But I wasn’t sure I was capable of smiling then. Or ever again.

“He’s a fucking idiot if he doesn’t care about you, Lore. If he doesn’t love you,” he added. “You’re the easiest person in the world to love. No,” he said at the pained whimper that escaped me.

Because if I was so easy to love, why didn’t he love me?

“No,” he repeated, taking a deep breath. “What I mean is… if he doesn’t love someone as lovable as you, maybe the issue is he isn’t capable of it.”

I said nothing. Because that didn’t make me feel any better. It didn’t undo the damage to my heart. Even if Renzo wasn’t capable of love, it didn’t change that I loved him.

“Is this why you were so adamant?” he asked after a moment. “About marrying him,” he clarified. “Did you have feelings for him already?”

“Yes,” I admitted. What use was lying about it anymore? Things couldn’t get worse.

“How?”

“I’d snuck out of Manhattan when I was sixteen,” I admitted. “I wanted to go to the bookstore in Brooklyn—“

“The one I should have fucking taken you to when you asked me,” he grumbled, angry at his younger self.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And I went and it was everything I ever thought it would be. But after…”

“After?” he prompted.

“After… some guys were harassing me. This is why I didn’t tell you,” I said, feeling him tense.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “What happened?”

“Renzo saved me,” I told him. “And it sounds really silly looking back, but I think I fell for him right then. And I kept going back to ‘shop for books,’ but I was really just trying to see him again.”

“Wait… did he know this?”

“No. I don’t think he even remembers the incident. Apparently, it’s, like, a rule in his family. If they see women or girls getting harassed on the street, they step in. I was probably one of hundreds,” I admitted.

But he’d been my one.

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