Page 34 of Forgive You

I labeled it as a mistake. An impulse from a girl whose heart had just been broken, by my own brother, but who still owned it, nonetheless. It had nothing to do with me. But the way my body still responds whenever I set my eyes on her contradicts that completely.

Our gazes lock, hers with palpable pain.

“You can fool the rest of them. But you can’t fool me. I saw the sheer terror in your eyes out there.”

“Look, I’m fine.” She flicks her wrist, dismissing me. “Just go back outside.”

“Is it the water?”

“I just didn’t want to swim!”

“Bullshit,” I snap. “That’s notjustit.”

She’s feisty. Hell, in some cases a fucking firecracker even. She’s adventurous, and she has no issues speaking her mind about whatever is bothering her. But this wasn’t her speakingher mind or setting a boundary. This was her freaking the fuck out enough to suck all the air from her lungs and freeze.

It was a fucking panic attack.

“Just leave me alone, Spence!” She bulldozes my way to head for the door, but I step in front of her, dipping my chin to fix it on her death glare. “Move.”

“Tell me why you had a panic attack.”

People don’t have panic attacks for no reason, and if this is something that’s happening frequently, I need to know. I don’t want her living alone, and going through this shit, on what? A daily basis? Monthly basis? She’s on my shitlist, but I’m still not acompleteasshole.

She studies my face for half a minute, her nostrils flaring like a cute baby bull each time she breathes out before her gaze cuts to the ceiling.

“Tell. Me,” I growl.

“I don't like the water! Okay? Happy now?” she shouts, then lowers her voice. “Scares the shit out of me. Now you can go back out there and tell them how silly I am.”

She folds her arms in front of her chest, and I pull a face.

That makes no fucking sense.

“Since when?”

“Always.”

“We’ve had half a dozen pool parties, and you didn’t freak out then. What are you not telling me?”

She steps back and fucking rolling her eyes once more before she tilts her head, challenging me with a single look.Brat.

“You’re asking the wrong questions, Jason.”

Deflection, of course.But I take the bait anyway. I always do with this girl.

“Would you answer them if I asked the right ones?”

“I wouldn’t lie.”

A year ago, I’d take that as gospel, but now my jaw clenches at that bullshit answer.

“I thought you’d never cheat.”

“I thought you’d never be this evil,” she retorts.

“Says the girl who had my fingers in her pussy with her boyfriend on the other side of the door.”

She just releases the tension in her shoulders, blowing out a raspberry, and that tired expression hits me in the heart like an arrow. My jaw falls slack.No way. There’s no way I would’ve missed that. But then I remember the micro responses she had at the gala. The eye rolls whenever my brother spoke. How she flinched when he touched her. The fact that she let me touch her while he was on the other side of the door.

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