Page 118 of The Truths We Burn

“He looks at you like he’s in physical pain. I don’t think he notices that he does it, but it hurts him to look at you.”

I’m sure to her, it looks like pain. Like twisted-up hurt.

At one point, he looked at me with longing and need, with desire and passion, but now it’s just hatred.

“It’s not pain,” I say. “It’s disgust. Rook hates me, and that’s about the only emotion he feels towards me now.”

“Now? So there was a before?”

I blow out a breath, running both hands through my hair and letting them cradle my neck as I look down at the bed.I could tell them, right? They won’t say anything. I mean, the only person I’m protecting at this point is Rook.

Defending the devil.

Even after all the shit he’s said, I’m still protecting him, keeping our secret so that his friends don’t feel betrayed that he withheld the truth from them. He’s given me so much fucking shit about lying, and now, there’s only one of us that’s lying.

And it’s not me. Not anymore.

“Last year, before Rosie died, Rook and I, we—” We what? Fucked? Fell in some type of weed-infused toxic love?“We messed around for a few months. It was just supposed to be a little secret fling. It wasn’t even supposed to be that. He was only going to be a one night of freedom that no one knew about. I didn’t expect it to turn into what it was. I didn’t expect to—”

“Fall in love?” Lyra interjects, her pupils dark and wide.

Was it love?

I think it was the closest I’d ever gotten to it. I know when things get dark inside my head, I relive the time we spent together. I think of all the things we never got to do and what my life would be like had I stayed with him.

I shrug. “I’m not even sure that’s what it was. I just knew by the end of it, I wanted to be with him. I wanted more, and I wasn’t allowed to have it. I was dating Easton at the time or, I should say, engaged to Easton.”

“I’m sorry. You said yes to a life with Easton Sinclair?” Briar looks at me, visibly cringing, making me laugh a little.

“Not willingly. His father set it up, and my family agreed so that Stephen Sinclair would keep paying our bills and funding my dad. I was going to leave after graduation. I wasn’t going to go through with it. I’d planned on telling Rook everything and leaving with him. But…”

His face flashes in my head, his voice, the way she smelled.

It was all so real.

“But Easton found out, and he threatened to take Rose instead. He told me I had to end it with Rook, or he’d ruin Rosie. I had a choice to make, and I couldn’t let anything happen to my sister. Not when her future was so much brighter than mine. She wouldn’t have made it out alive if she had to live a life like that. I forced Rook away to save Rose, and in the end, I lost them both.”

They both sit there with different versions of shock.

This weight lifted off my chest with the words, with saying them out loud.

Briar is the first to say something.“And he still doesn’t know the truth?”

I shake my head.

“You have to say something, Sage. You’re just letting him go around hating you!”

Is it worth it at this point? After everything I’d said, everything that happened, would it be worth it?

I doubt he would even believe me. I could tell him the sky is blue, and he’d still think I was lying to him. A relationship without trust is a disaster waiting to happen. All we had built in those months was destroyed, and I don’t think we can get that back.

We’re two people who never should’ve touched one another. We’re both too hardheaded, too stubborn, two flames constantly trying to burn higher than the other. We weren’t made for longevity.

I’d wanted him too quick. Too much. It wouldn’t have been healthy; it never would have worked. No matter how many times my heart tries to tell me differently.

Maybe all we were meant to be was that.

Two star-crossed lovers that made it out before Shakespeare had enough time to kill us.

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