Page 166 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

He’s frowning when he looks back at me. “I’ve never blamed you for his death. It was an accident and you hurt yourself. Even if you hadn’t fallen off your bike, you would have kept up with him and then what? I might have lost himandyou that day, and I’ve already told you I wouldn’t survive losing you.” He declares, his jaw set. “Any type of losing you, whether you leave me alive or dead.”

“You blame me for his death.” I shake my head, refusing to hear him. “That’s why you told me you wished I was in the casket. That’s why you’ve hated me all these years.”

“I hated you because I thought you were his. That I’d interrupted a love declaration between you two that day and that your heart was his. Was he in love with you?”

“Of course not, we were just friends. I don’t understand. If you didn’t blame me for his accident, then I don’t get why you hated me so much. Why did it matter if Astor loved me or not?”

I’m overwhelmed by everything I’m learning. I feel like the foundation of my entire world has just been ripped from under me and there’s nothing to hold onto as I fall into the abyss.

“BecauseIloved you.” He exclaims, the words tumbling out of him like lava out of an erupting volcano.

Chapter 48

Phoenix

She turns away from me. “Stop, Phoenix. I don’t want to hear it.”

I cup the back of her neck before she can move away from me and use it to curl her into the crook of my arm.

“You’re going to listen anyway. I loved you. I want to say that I still do, but what I felt for you then pales in comparison to what I feel for you now.” I tell her, earnestly. “And I already loved you so fucking much back then that it was easier to pretend I hated you than to accept that you chose him.”

“He was always the favorite; with our parents, with our teachers, with anyone we met. And I could handle that. I even liked it, being in the shadows. But not when it came to you. You were the one person I couldn’t stand him having. I wanted you for myself, I wanted you to choose me.” I finger a loose strand of my hair and push it back behind her ear. “I’m sure no one’s ever wanted anyone as much as I’ve wanted you.” I cup her cheek as a sheen of wetness covers my eyes. “And then he died, and with him so did any hope that you could make that choice freely. So, I tried to hate you,” I tell her, baring myself to her, “because it was easier than hopelessly loving you.”

“You don’t love me.”

“I do.”

Her face crumples and she wrenches herself away from me. “If you love someone, you don’t plan to abandon and humiliate them.”

I run my hands through my hair in frustration. “I was furious! I thought they were forcing you to marry me when you were still hung up on him. I thought you were settling for me. I had no idea how you felt about me, Six.”

I clasp her face in my hands and bring my mouth down on hers in a savage, possessive kiss meant to communicate the unhealthily strong obsession I have with her.

My heart is racing as I try to make her understand. She fucking destroyed me with her confession. I’d buried my head in the sand so deeply for so long that I couldn’t believe her at first.

Couldn’t believe it. Because if it was true, it meant I’d wasted six years pushing her away for no reason.

But seeing her face, the agony mixed with sincerity etched into her features as she poured her heart out to me made it pretty fucking obvious that I’d been wrong all this time.

She loved me.

She fuckinglovesme.

And I can’t even focus on basking in the feeling of getting everything I’ve ever wanted because I’ve fucked things. I’m in danger of losing her forever when I just found out I had her to begin with. That all this time when I was furiously claiming that she belonged to me – that she actually had, and for far longer than I’d known.

Steadfastly, resolutely, unwaveringly, mine.

Until now.

I can understand why she’s angry with me about breaking off the engagement, but I won’t stand for her not believing I’m in love with her.

She rips her lips from mine. “It’s too late, Phoenix.” She says, her voice toneless.

She struggles to break free, but I only tighten my hold in response. I grab her face and settle it between my hands as the rest of her body fights me.

“There’s no such thing as too late for us, Six.” I tell her, emotion twisting my voice.

My eyes are wild as I push the hair off her face and force her to look at me.

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