Page 79 of Beautiful Ruins
The words hit harder than I wanted to admit. Maybe because a part of me believed them. But I couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t get it. He never did.
“Fuck you, Rowan. I was trying to protect you. If you can’t see that then you’re as ignorant as ever.”
He narrowed his eyes, a shadow creeping over them. “What?”
I jabbed a finger in the air at him, my voice rising. “You said you’d do anything to keep me safe. Don’t you think I’d do the same for you? I’d die for you, Ro.”
His body stiffened. Just for a second. His mouth opened, then shut. He looked away, jaw clenched. Then he shook his head like he was trying to shake the words out of existence. “You don’t mean that.”
I didn’t flinch. “I mean every word. I would die for you the same way I’d have died for Logan.”
He moved around the tight bathroom like a caged thing, hands tugging at his hair. “Don’t say that. Don’t fucking saythat.” His voice cracked, splintering the thin air between us, and for a moment he looked so raw I almost couldn’t bear it.
The edges of his words found every fracture inside me, the pain a dull ache.
How could he not see the lengths I’d go to for him? Hadn’t I risked everything for him already? What else did he need to believe me?
“You know why.” My words were barely above a whisper.
He shook his head harder, eyes darting around the room, anywhere but at me. “Don’t. Just . . . don’t.”
“Why not?”
He paused in front of the sink and leaned over, bracing himself like the porcelain might give way under his weight. “Because every time I let my guard down, you do something like this. I can’t even trust you to keep yourself safe.” His face betrayed him, giving me a glimpse of the panic beneath the anger, and the exhaustion layered under both. “And tonight, you put Scout in danger. And for what? A fucking phone number.” He turned on me, the veins in his neck straining under his tattooed skin. “If Snake finds out you were in his house, he’ll kill you. Do you understand that? When you do reckless shit, how am I supposed to protect you?”
“Me?” I scoffed. “Pretty sure you were the one who went and got yourself shot. How’s that for reckless?” My voice caught in my throat, choking me up.
Just the reminder of seeing him on that bed . . . I couldn’t do that again.
“And that could have been you today. Do you understand that?” He struck a fist against his chest, right over his ribs, like he wanted to crack himself open and show me the rot he kept buried underneath. “You think I want to bury you, Firefly?” His voice broke then. Just a crack, the first snap in a collapsing dam. “I’d rather die a thousand excruciating deaths—a million—than endure this fucking existence without you. And you know what? Maybe that’s what’s truly reckless—giving you my damn heart.”
In that moment, everything else in the shitty little bathroom stilled, except for the drip of the leaking tap and the frantic thud of blood inside my head. I saw it then. Not just the fear, but the truth underneath it. He didn’t want to lose me. He already had too much to lose.
And he was trying so hard to hide from me. His terror was palpable. Though it wasn’t the kind of fear you felt in the face of a gun or a man like Snake. This was the kind that came from being seen—really seen—and not being sure you’d survive it.
My first instinct was to throw my arms around him, to tell him I’d never leave, that we were too broken to survive apart—even if we tried to pretend otherwise. But he’d gone rigid, every muscle trembling with restraint. Maybe the only thing keeping him from shattering into pieces was some mental duct tape and the stubbornness that had gotten all of us this far.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered, but it was pathetic, and we both knew it.
Because I’d always wanted him to say it. I’d wanted to hear him admit that all his anger, all his violence, all his rules, were just armour for how fucking much he cared.
He turned the tap on, his hands shaking as he cupped them under the stream of water and splashed his face.
After a long minute, he sighed, shaking his head. “I’m done, Sadie. I can’t keep doing this with you,” he mumbled, snatching up a towel and wiping himself clean. “Not anymore. Just go home.”
Go home? Like I’d ever leave him to suffer in his own mess, alone and hating himself. Not after what we’d been through. Not after everything that had happened over the past few weeks, let alone the last six years. Even when I left, part of mestayed, trapped in his gravity, still reaching for what we’d almost had. And now he was finally—finally—giving me one honest piece of himself.
Walk away? Like that was even possible.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one who hid. I’d ran to hide from my past. But Rowan just stayed behind and built walls instead.
I followed him out of the bathroom, the sharpness of the antiseptic trailing behind him as he stalked down the stairway, his boots pounding the floorboards underneath the worn carpet. He crossed the living room and poured himself a glass of whiskey without looking at me, the slap of liquid unnaturally loud in the empty house.
“Rowan,” I said, but he ignored me, throwing back half the glass in one go. He slammed the bottle on the shelf, the glass shuddering. “We need to talk about this.” I came up behind him.
He didn’t budge, even as I hovered at his back, afraid to touch him, afraid not to.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see his face—I knew what I’d find if I did.
