Page 33 of Cruel Devotion

Soon enough, he wouldn’t be in my life at all. And once again, I couldn’t understand the pang of pain that hit me in the chest at that idea.

12

ELI

She cared. Haley cared about me.

She had to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t reach out and make a move to help me clean up my cuts. They ceased stinging. The warmth of my blood didn’t register from the open scrapes. After walking all the way back to campus from the restaurant in a crappy attempt at cooling down after fighting my dad, I ended up freezing. The walk did me good. I no longer felt gripped by rage.

The second I saw the lights of the library, I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to come inside to warm up for a minute. Frostbite wouldn’t help me any.

I hadn’t counted on seeingherhere. After my failed approach in the food court, I hadn’t figured out another strategy to get near her or start getting her to warm up to me. This library—any of them—was a good location to find her. She was often near books, either studying or reading for fun. Yet, I hadn’t come here with the purpose of seeking her out.

Now that I had, I realized my mistake from earlier.

I thought that I could get her to lighten up around me and warm up to me if I stood up for her and helped her out. If I came to her defense.

That didn’t work. She was too guarded and cautious, too skeptical to trust my intentions. And she was right to be like that after how crappy I’d been toward her for years.

What seemed to crack her was being in need ofherhelp.

Even though she still regarded me with caution, eyeing me like she expected me to spring up like a cobra and snap and bite, she was helping me. I didn’t need a nurse. Being pampered with her delicate fingers wiping away the blood on my knuckles wouldn’t make a difference in whether I’d live or not. Of course, I would. A few bruises and scrapes weren’t going to kill me.

It was the thought that counted.

It was the way she could risk her reservations and concerns about me and want to help anyway.

Telling her that she didn’t care about me was a dumb thing to say. She obviously did if she was showing me her patience and reluctant desire to tend to my injuries, the little that she could with water and a tissue.

She cares.

And that made me feel even worse than I did before I walked in here.

Stuck in the pain of being unloved, I was sadder and more wounded in my heart than ever before. Every criticism for my shortcomings, every nagging lecture about why I couldn’t be smarter, every time that bastard told me I was being disrespectful, as if I were wrong not to care about the parents who so clearly didn’t love me. It all built up, every hit stacking like boulders until I felt so fucking weighed down I didn’t know why I bothered to get up and keep going.

That was where my head was when I entered the library for some warmth before walking the rest of the way back to my dorm.

Finding Haley here and letting her care for me somehow made it even worse.

Because she didn’t care—not aboutme. She cared to the fundamental level of not wanting to see someone in pain, as though I were a stray animal that needed rescuing. She cared in the vein of having too big of a heart to let someone physically suffer without trying to assist. After all this time, she was still the bleeding-heart empath.

That was why she was doing this.

That was it.

It wasn’t because she cared aboutme. I was no closer to being loved or desired or even liked for who I was.

If she cared, she’d admit it. But as I watched her wipe the blood away, refusing to make eye contact, I knew no such admission would be coming from her lips. She didn’t care about me. She was just a good person. And I wished that could’ve made me rethink shoving her away all those years ago.

“Come here,” she said, not reacting to how I watched her. Gesturing for me to come closer and face her more, she sat up straighter and rewet the tissue to wipe at my face.

“It’s fine.”

“You’re bleeding here and there.” She put her fingertips on my face, turning it slightly.

“But it’s not dripping onto your precious books.”

“They’re notmybooks. They’re for everyone.” She gently dabbed at the scrape on my brow.

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