Page 61 of Endless Love

“But you’re not sorry for finding me. For meeting me. For dragging me into your web—” Charlotte breaks off, looking away sharply, and I close my eyes briefly, that pain, wedging itself into my heart.

“I can’t be sorry for meeting you. For all the time I had with you. For—”For falling in love with you.The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say them. I can’t bear to see them brushed away, ignored because Charlotte can’t let herself believe that anything I say about how I feel for her is the truth, any longer.

“What are you going to do after all of this is over? After we have our new identification, and we?—”

And we go our separate ways.She doesn’t want to say it out loud, but that’s the truth.

I think about it for a moment. I’ve been thinking about the answer to this for years, really, and it’s always felt a bit like a mirage, shimmering just out of reach. I’ve never been entirely surewhatI would do when I finally got there, when I had my freedom from my family, only that eventually Iwouldhave it.

And recently, I haven’t been able to think very much at all, beyond Charlotte. Being with her. Wanting her. And now, getting her safely to Vegas, so I can undo what I’ve done wrong. Make it right, as best as I can. All of my focus has been on keeping us both alive, on outrunning the dangers pursuing us, on getting to my contact. Everything beyond that has been hazy.

“I don’t need money.” I shrug, thinking of what I have tucked away in my many bank accounts. “So I always thought I’d do something for fun. Make friends with some tattoo artists andtalk them into giving me an apprenticeship. Learn to surf. Take up woodcarving. Open my own mechanic shop, just because I like to work on cars. Have a small place of my own, somewhere near water, where I can smell the salt.” I let out a long breath, running a hand through my hair. “All that’s really mattered to me all along was that I had the money and contacts to get free of my family. After that, I figured I’d stay on the move for a while. Stay off the radar until I decided where I wanted to settle, once the heat died down.”

Charlotte swallows, her throat moving as she nods, still staring out into the dark forest through the window. Her gaze is distant, far-off, as if she’s looking for something and not finding it. “I keep thinking about what I might do. Where I’d want to go. But none of it feels real. I can’twantany of it. It feels like—like I’m planning someone else’s life.”

I wince, the knowledge once again that this is my fault settling heavily on my shoulders. I want to tell her that it doesn’t have to be like that, for either of us. That if we’re going to be lost about what our future entails, we could be lost together. We could find a way to make it work. Before all of this, before she knew the truth, we were happy in all the moments that we spent together.

But I lost her trust. She might trust me when it comes to our mutual safety, but she doesn’t trust me with her heart. And I don’t know what I can do to win it back again.

“I know the plan,” Charlotte says slowly, still staring out at the trees beyond the window. “I know that we’re going to Vegas, and that some man is going to give me a new social security card, and driver’s license, and anything else I might need to start over fresh. Unfindable by anyone—even the people who I would want to find me.” Her voice trembles a little, and I suppress the urge to pull her close once again.

“I’m supposed to move forward from all of this, but I don’t knowhow,” she whispers. “Everything feels…tainted. I feel like I can’t trust my own judgment.” She twists around finally, fully, looking at me as she leans back against the window sill, her arms wrapped around herself. “You lied to me, Ivan, but I let myself believe all of it because I wanted to. And now I find myself second-guessing everything I think.”

That stabbing pain slices through my chest again, guilt welling up in me, hot and thick and suffocating. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I never meant to make you feel like this.”

Charlotte swallows hard, a bitter smile curving the edges of her mouth. “What is it they say about good intentions? And yours weren’t even all that good to begin with.”

There’s nothing I can say to that. The silence hangs between us, as thick as the guilt weighing me down, and I want to tell her that it will be okay. That everything will be fine in the end. But I have no way of knowing that—and I’m long past being able to make those kinds of promises to her.

“We should go back to sleep,” I say finally, shoving my hands into my pockets and stepping back. I don’t know how much longer I can resist her pull. It’s like gravity, begging me to hold her, to touch her, to pour everything I feel for her into her—and that is exactly what I shouldn’t do. “We have a couple more long driving days ahead of us. And I’m sure you feel as bad as I do.”

My shoulder is aching. I know from previous injuries that the second day is always worse than the first. Tomorrow will suck, but I’d endure any pain to make sure she’s safe. I just don’t want her to be hurting, as well.

Charlotte nods. “I can’t ever remember having been this sore,” she admits, and my heart twists in my chest. “I’ll try to get some sleep.”

She brushes past me, and it takes everything in me not to reach for her, to hook my hand in her elbow and pull her into me,to slide my fingers into her hair and draw her lips down to mine. Every part of me is aching to kiss her, but I let her go, standing there as she retreats to her bed.

I watch her slide under the blankets, rolling over to face the wall. I look at her face in the dim moonlight, and my chest hurts, my body crying out for a hit of the drug that I finally got hooked on.

Withdrawal is going to be a bitch. And I don’t think I’ll ever really get over her.

26

CHARLOTTE

The next morning, the sunlight streaming into the cabin is what wakes us. It’s chilly when I throw back the blankets, cutting through my thin t-shirt, and I wrap my arms over my chest, feeling suddenly exposed. Ivan is sitting up, too, running his hands through his still-bloodied hair as he blinks away sleep, and something about the way his face is still soft and vulnerable in this in-between moment makes me want to get up and go to him.

It reminds me of Ivan before all of this. The man I thought I knew. The one I was falling for.

Aren’t you falling for this one, too?

I shove the thought away, getting up to go and get a granola bar and bottle of water from the pile of our supplies on the table. The moment my feet hit the floor, and I straighten up fully, I let out a moan of pain, clenching my teeth against the bone-deep soreness.

Ivan is up in an instant, so quickly that I don’t even see him coming towards me at first. I’m too focused on how fucking bad I feel.

“Charlotte?” His voice is strained, panicked. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I bite out the word, swallowing hard as I try to force myself to move. “I’m just really, really fucking sore. I’ve done Pilates classes with Sarah, and I’ve still never been this sore.”

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