Page 132 of Teacher's Pet

“You-” she chokes, her voice wrecked.“Promised.”

I swallow hard.

“Yeah,” I say, the word cold, final. “You should have known better.”

She clutches her throbbing cheek, her head shaking, eyes unfocused.

“Mrs. Briar was right,” she whispers.

Eden?

What the hell did Eden say to her?

“You can’t care,” she bites, her voice trembling, thick with unshed pain. “You can’t attach.”

A sob catches in her throat.

“You can’t love.”

Her words gut me.

Because, Ana…

That might be the only reason I’m doing this.

“Love?” I laugh, the sound hollow and cruel.

She flinches.

“God, you really are fucking delusional,” I sneer, watching the pain flicker in her eyes, watching as it cuts into her, deeper than anything else I’ve said. “If you wanted love, Ana, maybe you should have given Walker what he wanted.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I see it.

I see the moment I ruin everything.

The moment I lose her.

She blinks, stunned, her breath shuddering in her chest.

Then she steps back.

Her lips tremble, her chin quivers, and then…

The first sob breaks free.

It shatters something in me.

But I don’t move.

I don’t reach for her.

I don’t do the one thing I desperately need to do; pull her into me, bury my face in her hair, hold her until her sobs quiet and there’s no air left between us.

Instead, I stand there, silent and frozen, watching her crumble because of me.

She stumbles backward, her shoulders shaking, her breath ragged, the weight of my words poisoning every fragile piece of her.

And I let her go.

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