Page 31 of No Broken Promises

That fucking letter.

Even as I reach down to grab it before she can, Parker is moving. She has it in her tiny hands, staring at it as though it holds all the poison and venom in the world.

“No.”

I thought she sounded broken before, but I’ve obviously been mistaken. I will never have the words to describe her tone of voice. It is so much worse than it had been after Danny’s funeral as she cried for him. Worse than the day she broke her wrist in fifth grade. Worse than the day her parents died and my mom brought her to the house to stay with us until her aunt could get her. Worse than any sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

I reach for her, unsure of what I am trying to accomplish, but Parker shoves my hands away and falls to her knees.

The box of letters. She grabs them and brings the entire thing to her chest, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks.

My hands tremble again, this time with the need to help her. To make her stop… But I can’t. Not when I am the reason for her pain—for her tears. I’ve done this to her.

Fuck.

I yank at the hair on my head, unable to do anything else, and let her cry.

“You lied to me.” Her whisper crushes me, and I find myself dropping to my knees next to her.

Her name a shattered whisper upon my lips, I rail against the lie I’d told. I won’t deny it, though. Not to Parker.

Instead of looking at me, Parker pulls the box of letters away from her chest and starts to rifle through it, each breath becoming more labored than the last.

In the dim light of the living room, she pulls letter after letter from the box as though they are precious to her. My pain and heartache are nothing compared to hers. As her sobs became uncontrollable and her hands shake, Parker keeps going. Letter after letter, not just the ones from our deployment that are in the box, either. But every single letter she’d written me while we were in boot camp. The ones she wrote while I was in MOS school. All of them. She sees them all, and it isn’t until she sets them down on the floor in front of her that she looks up to face me.

Her despair crushes me. I lean forward, unable to stop myself, and my hands hang limply over my knees. I can’t reach for her. Not after she’s pushed me away.

“Parker.” Helpless, I wait for any sign from her that she will forgive me for this. That I haven’t destroyed her. “Parker, I can explain.”

“I hate you, Jeremy Vale Townsend.”

Her words cut deeper than any wound I’ve ever received. She never used my real name after she realized I hated the nicknames. I swallow, despite the boulder that has taken up residence in my throat, and try not to cry. Her anger, I can handle. Her derision, sure that too. Even her tears, I will find a way to get through it. But her hate? I will never survive. Even overseas, as I ignored every letter she sent, as she moved on in her life with Danny, I didn’t have her hate. Her hate means there is nothing left. Nothing left for me to cling to in the dark, when all that is left to keep me company are my demons.

“Please, Parker.”

She pulls even farther away from me, falling backward on her ass in her haste to put distance between us.

“You lied to me. For years.” Her sob fills the air between us before she slumps back, all of her energy spent. “Why?”

“You weren’t mine.” The simple admission should have come out smoothly. Instead, my words are clipped, curt, and filled with the rage at our truth. “You were never mine, Parker.”

Parker’s face, still beautiful even though she has tears streaming down her cheeks and red eyes from crying, contorts in pain.

I should have stopped there. I should have closed my fucking mouth and not said another word. Even as I open it, I tell myself to shut the fuck up. But I can’t. Not when we’ve already blown through the dam of emotions between us with a stick of dynamite. There will be no going back. Not now.

“You were supposed to have a life outside of Birch Harbor. You were supposed to have more. More than me. More than any of this. And you… you chose Danny.” I can’t meet her eyes, my gaze firmly stuck on my hands.

Her sharp inhalation is the only indication that she’s even processed my words, followed by the sound of her pushing up off the ground.

I get up as well, unwilling to stay on the floor while she stands above me.

“You’re fucking kidding me, Jeremy. You have to be kidding me. I poured my heart out to you.” She starts to pace, and even though I can’t meet her eyes, I watch her every move. “I offered you everything. You. Rejected. Me. You… You did that.” She stops in front of me. “You shattered me. And you don’t even know the whole story, yet you judge me for something you could never understand, just like everyone else. You could have been my hero, Jeremy. You literally had everything in the palm of your hand, and you decided that I wasn’t worth it. You threw everything away. Do you want to talk about that?”

My mouth hangs open, shocked that she admits what I’ve only recently found out from Linc. I try to tell her I am sorry. That I was in the wrong to push her away. That I’ve always loved her. But none of that comes out.

“Clearly, I wasn’t the one for you.”

Parker’s hand moves so fast that I barely see it. But I sure as fuck feel the sharp sting of her palm connecting with my cheek as she hits me with every bit of strength she has.

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