Page 64 of The Road to Finding Us

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aspen tries.

I barely hear him over the sound of the rain pelting my skin. I have to all but jog to keep up with him. Because his legs are much longer in comparison to mine, it takes me twice as much effort to keep pace with him. My clothes cling to my body as I squint ahead in the downpour surrounding us.

“Of course you don’t!” I seethe, my hands flying in the air as I continue my rampage. “You keep playing fucking dumb when you’re not. We had a good thing going, Aspen—or could have—but you fucking ruined it! Which is fine. I never expected a damn relationship with you. I knew you and your antics. I didn’t expect to change you. But for fuck’s sake, I wanted you to remember me. I wanted a little consideration after I let you take my virginity. I didn’t want you to fuck me one night and another girl the next. You barely spared me a second glance after that—for the rest of the year. It made me feel like fucking dirt. Dirt, Aspen, like what we did was wrong, or dirty. Even though it meant something to me. And now…”

I laugh maniacally. “You bulldoze your way back into my life—and I fucking let you! And here I am, once again, reeling from the temperamental treatment you give me. I’m sick of it. You have no idea how this feels.” At some point, he stopped walking. I give him my dirtiest look as I brush past him. I don’t hear him behind me and when I look over my shoulder, I find him standing statue still where I left him.

Good.

“You want to know how it feels, Lily?” he yells over the sound of the rain. Even with his raised voice, the storm blurs his words.

I glance back to find him walking straight to me. He stops a foot away from me, his chest heaving as the rain drums against his skin, the darker strands of his hair sticking to face.

“I’ve been fucking miserable without you, okay? Is that what you want to hear?” he shouts. His hand beats against his chest as he continues to yell his words over the rain. “That my world fucking stopped when you stormed down that driveway, away from me? So, there you have it. Full disclosure. My heart laid fucking bare for you. Are you happy now?” he says, and his voice breaking at the end almost does me in.

The only sounds I register are the whooshing of the blood in my ears, my heartbeat—erratic with his confession, and the distant rumble of thunder.

Aspen clenches his jaw before taking a few steps forward, to which I respond by stepping back.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” I stutter. I notice the pool of water forming at my feet from the downpour. When I look at him, I’m met with his penetrating gaze.

He steps forward again and I notice that the green of his eyes is barely noticeable behind his dilated pupils. His nostrils are flaring, and I can see his jaw tic further with each passing second.

“Christ, Lily, let me fucking spell it out for you. I was in love with you. Everyone knew it but you. Maverick knew it, Selma knew it. Hell, even Veronica knew it once she came into the picture. I never got the chance to tell you this, but that first night we kissed, it changed my life. I knew right then that all I wanted was you. That all I ever needed was you. But after we slept together, you were so convinced I was freaked out and didn’t want you, when I was just trying to process how bad I did want you. How much I loved you. How happy it made me to know I was the only man who’d ever been inside you. I was ready to convince you of all this, but you pushed me away. You didn’t believe me when I told you I hadn’t done anything with any of the girls you saw after we were together. So I shut down, because if I couldn’t convince the woman I was love in love with that I wasn’t a piece of shit, what was the point? In not believing me, you broke my heart.”

He looks into the distance for a moment before taking a deep breath. “No, you didn’t even break it, you shattered it. My whole plan blew up in my face, and I lost you—completely. You barely even looked at me the next day. So I stopped trying. I gave you what you wanted. You wanted to protect your heart by pretending I was a man whore, so I gave you that. I pretended to be one. Bringing girls into my room was easy, I didn’t have to do anything with them. They were just there. Selma told me to give you time and you’d come around, but you never did. Therefore, I shut my emotions off and moved on. I played the part you so desperately wanted me to play. It still feels like a punch to the gut every time I see you, knowing you’ll never be mine because you can’t look at me and trust me when I say I want you and only you. But I’m living with that. So if you could do me one last favor and stop bringing up the day my heart was ripped from my chest, I’d appreciate it.”

By the end of his speech, we’re chest to chest. His heaving breaths are in time with mine, and I can feel his rapid heartbeat against my own. Aspen stares at me, waiting for an answer, and a million different scenarios unfold in my head.

I know I should respond, but I can’t say anything, can’t feel anything. His gaze searches mine a moment longer until I swear I see his broken heart right through his gaze. He lets out a frustrated breath before walking past me.

I’m left standing in the pouring rain, alone. The rain beats against me and I can’t seem to care. My whole world just crashed down right in front of me. It feels like I’ve been ripped from my own fantasy world and set into a reality I didn’t want. Thunder rolls in the distance, competing with the sound of my heart shattering inside me. My tears mix with the rain until I don’t know which is which.

I silently follow behind him, the lights from the town slowly coming into focus ahead of us. I can’t even bring myself to be excited about the prospect of civilization, as my head is still spinning with Aspen’s revelations. Not even the sounds of the storm can distract me from the storm going on in my mind.

32

Aspen

Present

Neither one of us talk as we make our way toward the sleepy town. I stare at Lily’s back as we walk in the direction of the flickering lights ahead. I’m too angry with her to spark up any kind of conversation.

I’m so fucking sick of having to play the villain in her story. I’m tired of having to play the part—in her mind—of the guy who can’t keep his dick in his pants.

Memories come racing back to me. I think back, trying to pinpoint the moment I realized I was in love with Lily Morrison. I can’t remember an exact time and place. It just seems like a feeling, as much a part of me as anything else in me is. I can remember the day she broke my heart, however. The day she stormed out of my house, without giving me the chance to even begin to explain my reaction. When she told me I was the only man she’d ever slept with, I lost my shit. But not in the way she assumed.

I lost my shit because it dawned on me that I desperately wanted to be the only man to ever be intimate with her like that.

I was so busy avoiding my feelings for Lily, I didn’t notice I was falling in love with her.

She made me so fucking angry when she used my past against me. She threw old flames in my face like it was nothing. I tried to tell her there was no way in hell those other girls could ever hold a candle to her, but she wouldn’t listen.

In that moment, I realized I was in love with a girl who was too obsessed with pegging me as a playboy to consider I’d happily change my ways if it meant I got to keep her.

So I gave her what she wanted. I pretended to go right back to my previous antics.

If she wanted to pin me as a man whore, if it made things easier for her, I’d let her.

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