Page 29 of Valentine's Miracle

More than once, I interrupt her because I can’t bear to hear another justification or another lie that comes out of her pink lips. “Are you embarrassed about me? Did you humiliate yourself after?”

Bowing my head, I press my face to her neck and breathe in her sweet scent. Her soft skin is addictive as I keep my lips on her quick pulse. At least she is affected by me as much as I am by her. There is no denying that there is something going on in her head, but her heart’s rhythm speaks more to me.

“I just want answers, and you won’t tell me, am I that appalling to love?” I utter softly, a touch of vulnerability and doubt.

“Listen.” She lets go of my shirt and wraps her small arm around my back as much as she can and find purchase there.

“I was too sick from the panini bread that I had, but I knew I had to make it to the entrance exam, so I took it. That cold medicine works so well that it makes the fever burn my memories. It wasn’t the first time it happened, and I usually use that as my last resort.”

That explanation is just as absurd as Sebastian going abstinent. It’s improbable and unrealistic.

“You’re lying.” I don’t believe it, but I want to. I want to believe that it’s that simple and there was no ulterior heartbreak hidden in her words.

“Silas. Have I ever lied to you before?” She runs her small hand against my spine and my body shudders, fanning her neck with my minty breath.

“Yes, that night.” I stay bullheaded; my brain has been fighting for so long that it’s the only thing it knows what to do.

“I just told you what happened.”

She did. She told me she doesn’t remember the night before, and it was such a mockery to my feelings that she played me like a fucking fool.

“And you still left.”

She sighs, pulling her hand away from my back to cup my face. The gentle stroke on my cheek has me leaning against her hand. “For college. Is that why you were so angry? Because I left for school in another state?”

She doesn’t get it because she’s naïve and oblivious to a fault.

“No, I was angry because I was in love with you too.”

“I—what? You were?” she stammers, her cheeks turning red.

It shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does give my heart hope and feathery lightness.

I admit to everything without a shred of regret or mortification. “Since I was young, but then that happened, and everything went to shit. I didn’t want to talk to you because I was humiliated, angry, and I resented you for lying and for leaving me behind.”

Those were the dark times. I had trouble as a child and in my teenage years, but her absence left a hole too deep to be filled with any help. She just packed her stuff and left, but she still tried to talk to me outside my bedroom door before she went.

I was the one that kept that door locked.

“Silas, you were young,” she murmurs, brown eyes sadden with a drained smile. “You had a whole future in front of you, and you still do, and I wouldn’t have let you follow me and settle for what I want. I don’t want you to settle for anything less than what you want to do, not then and not now.”

I could care less about the perfect future she wants me to have. Without Victoria and her shitty nonsense behavior, it would be just a canvas of black.

“Do you still love me?” I ask.

Her hand twitches on my cheek, rubbing my jaw absentmindedly. “I… yes.”

“Then I don’t want anything else.”

She puffs a breath, her air not catching up to her words. “Silas. You’re still young, and there are others out there who are a better fit for you.”

“They’re not you.”

Victoria needs to know that she is special to me, and I have never once had a night without dreaming of her.

“I couldn’t even figure out what had happened, and I wasn’t strong enough to keep our friendship.” Trying to convince me and change my mind after I know the truth that I stubbornly wanted to avoid, I will not simply back down with her flimsy excuse.

“Relationships take more than one person, and it was my fault too for being stubborn. You tried, tried so hard to get to the truth, but I wouldn’t let you. This time, I want to make it up to you. You were hurt because of me and the least I can do is put in more effort this time.”

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