Page 124 of Come Break My Heart Again

My eyes dart around the kitchen. Looking for an escape route. Making sure there are no witnesses.

“And you got suspended senior year?”

My grip tightens on the glass stem and the wine bottle.Fucking Reese. I’m positive she told him.

The longer I stay silent, the more irritated Ryder appears. I don’t know how he thinkshehas any right to be the vexed person standing in this kitchen.

“What the hell happened, Elle?”

“None of your business,” I snap.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

My molars grind. “I’m sure Reese already?—”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Too bad we don’t always get what we want, isn’t it?” I taunt.

He shakes his head. Annoyance has departed, leaving anger behind. “Why the fuck would you?—”

“No.” I slam the wine bottle down and step closer. “Nofucking wayare we doing this, Ryder. Ibeggedyou to talk to me. Ibeggedyou for answers.No fucking wayare you demanding any from me. You. Shut. Me. Out. My life—my decisions—is none of your damn business. You’ve heard that before? I’ll tell you a thousand more times. That’s all you’re getting from me.”

“Are the gifts you brought my mom none of my business too, Elle? Theseven yearsof visits? You think Cormac didn’t tell me about the way you edited his college essays and helped him get the internship he’s so proud of?”

Crap, crap,crap.

Everything he wasn’t supposed to know is laid out right in front of me. And if he found out, he wasn’t supposed to care enough to ask me about any of it. To demand explanations like he has any right to them.

My shoulders square. “Yeah. That’s all none of your business too. I’m not going to apologize—for any of it.”

“I’m not asking you to apologize. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck happened after I left.”

“If you wanted updates, you should’ve let me visit,” I snap. “I would have explained it to you.”

“I was inprison, Elle! It wasn’t rehab or juvie or?—”

“I saw it, Ryder. I know what it looked like. Or are we pretending that never happened either?”

“I’m not pretending anything.” He rakes a hand through his hair angrily. “I just don’t get it.”

“Don’t getwhat?”

Our voices are rising, echoing off the marble counters and high ceiling.

“Anyof it! Why you switched schools for the rest of senior year. Why you visited my mom. Why you?—”

“You don’t want answers to those questions,” I tell him.

He shoves away from the doorway, stepping closer. Both of his hands go up, locking behind his head. “What are you talking about? I’m literally asking you?—”

“You don’t want to know that my parents shipped me off to boarding school so there was no record of my suspension. You don’t want to know I got grounded for a month after they found out I’d driven to a prison—a prison I had to lie my way into because it was the only way I could see you. You don’t want to know that the monthly visits with your mom started because I felt bad about stealing her ID so I could pretend to be someone you’d approved for visits. You don’t want to know that I started spending time with Cormac because he had shown up at my house over the holidays and asked that I give you another chance. That he’d go with me to visit you, if I was scared to show up at a prison alone. So,fuck you, Ryder James. Fuck you for not caring and fuck you for acting like I shouldn’t have either.”

Ryder’s arms drop, his hands forming fists at his sides. “Of courseI fuckingcared, Elle. Are you kidding me? I was in love with you!”

The past tense stings. Yet another reminder that I’ve held on to my feelings all these years like a fool and he let go a long time ago.

“Maybe you thought you were. But you weren’t. You don’t treat someone you love like you treated me.”

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