Page 57 of Teach Me to Fly

“I didn’t touch her until a few minutes ago,” Reign replies, his tone calm. “She walked in here all on her own.”

“That’s not the point. You could have just brought her back to her room, like last time. But you tucked her in right next to you instead. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Like last time?

Reign’s jaw tightens. “And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means I know you. You see someone vulnerable, and you jump at the chance to break them.”

“It wasn’t like that, Lando,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady.

His chest rises and falls with shallow breaths. “Wasn’t it though? You two snuck around behind my back all summer before you moved, and what happened after you left?”

Reign loosens his grip on me slightly as he focuses on every word that Lando is saying now.

“He broke you,” Lando shouts. “Just like he does to everyone who gets too close. And now you’re about to throw yourself into another mess as if it’s not the samemistake that already nearly destroyed you once. Don’t act surprised when it ends the same way.”

The room goes silent as I stare at Lando, my heart pounding loudly in my ears, and my breath caught in my throat. I’ve never had him speak to me like this before, but he’s right, isn’t he? I’m just opening myself up to more heartbreak, like I haven’t had enough of it.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Reign says behind me, his voice deathly calm.

My skin erupts in goosebumps just from the sound, and Lando’s eyes widen before he turns and walks out, the front door slamming shut behind him. I sit in silence with my back to Reign, unsure how to face him after what Lando just said.

The bed creaks as he readjusts himself behind me, the headboard tapping against the wall when he leans back on it.

He lets out a deep, frustrated sigh. “Can you turn around, please?”

I swallow back my nerves and hesitations, turning around to face him, the blanket slipping off and exposing my bare thighs even more. His eyes catch on my skin, but he forces them back up to my face.

“I want to talk about how I ghosted you,” he says, holding out his hand for me to take. “For real this time.”

Tightness forms in my throat as, second by second, the pain I endured when he vanished on me floods back in. I take his hand and let him pull me onto his lap, my palms resting on his shoulders and his on my hips.

“Why did you do it?” I whisper, unable to look into his eyes for fear he’d see too much.

He lets out a heavy breath, opening and closing his mouth like he’s struggling to find the words. Then, hetilts his head back against the headboard and finds my eyes.

“I thought I was doing what was best for you,” he says carefully. “I thought if you had nothing to come back to in Marlow, you’d focus on the amazing opportunity in front of you in New York and live out your dreams.”

His answer isn’t enough, it will never be enough. So, I ask the one question that I’ve asked myself almost every day for the last five years.

“Why was it so easy for you to let me go?”

And just like that, I see all the pain he’s been hiding behind the mask. He’s looking at me like I’ve just ripped his heart out with that one question.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he whispers, voice cracking.

“Was it though?” I laugh, a watery sound. “You never once gave in, not even one.”

He reaches up and carefully wipes away my tears with a pained expression. “I did. You just never knew about it.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but his phone vibrates obnoxiously on the nightstand. We both look over and see a picture of Terry’s face lighting up the screen.

“Answer it.”

He reaches over and picks up the call, putting Terry on speaker.

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