Page 185 of Surfer's Paradise

Tears blurred her vision.

“I thought I was protecting you. I thought just being there was enough. But it wasn’t. I failed you.”

“No,” she whispered. But he wasn’t listening.

“I should’ve seen it. I should’ve fucking seen it.” His hands trembled, his whole body vibrating like he was holding in a scream. “You were a goddamn child and I let him keep hurting you.”

He took a step back. Then another. Like he couldn’t bear to be near her. Like her forgiveness would burn him alive.

Rosie moved to him. “Isaac—”

“I can’t live with it,” he rasped. “I can’t sleep. I dream about it now. You. Him. That night. Every night since yesterday, I see it all. I see you.”

She reached for him.

He finally looked at her.

And God, he was ruined.

Not by the punch he hadn’t thrown tonight.

But by the one he didn’t throw twenty years ago.

The one he should’ve thrown when he was just a boy.

Rosie stepped closer and laid her hand over his heart.

It was thunderous beneath her palm.

And then his arms came around her like gravity. Like need. Like he’d been holding himself upright by force alone, and she was the only thing strong enough to take the weight.

She held him tightly, her hand pressed to the back of his neck, her cheek against his chest. Felt the thud of his heart. The tension in his spine. The grief in his silence.

Chris, Shay, and Amy hovered nearby. But the room had narrowed. It was just him and her. Their whole lives compressed into this moment.

He exhaled shakily. “I never let myself fall in love.”

Rosie froze.

He didn’t pull away.

“Not with anyone,” Isaac said. “Not once. All these years. Not a single woman.”

She pulled back just enough to see his face. “Why?”

His throat worked. His jaw clenched. “Because I already was.”

Her breath hitched.

Isaac’s voice was barely a whisper. “With you.”

Tears blurred her vision.

“I didn’t know how to feel it,” he said, eyes dark and raw. “Not when every time I looked at you, I remembered what I didn’t do. What I didn’t stop. And it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there than admit I was in love with someone I’d already failed.”

Her whole chest squeezed.

“I thought I didn’t deserve it,” he said, hoarse. “I thought… if I let myself have that, it would mean what happened to you didn’t matter.”

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