Page 88 of Wilder Love
That thought knocked the air out of my lungs.
“You’re drunk. I’m not having this conversation now.” I grabbed my phone from the table, and walked inside the house, turning on the lights as I went. “You should go,” I said, hating how my voice shook. “I’ll call you a Lyft—”
He turned me around and walked me backward. My back hit the wall and he flattened the palms of his hands on either side of my head, caging me in.
“I. Loved. You. I told you we would have found a way to work things out. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for you. Nothing I wouldn’t have done to be with you. Instead of telling me the truth, you broke my fucking heart.” Years of pent-up anger bubbled to the surface and erupted like molten lava. Heat and tension rolled off him in waves.
“I broke my own heart too. I thought I was doing the best thing for you.” I wanted so much for him to believe that. I raised my eyes to his, and I flinched at the flash of anger in his eyes.
“If you had one ounce of faith in me, you would have let me handle it.”
“I was tired of you always having to rescue me. Always playing the white knight.” My protests sounded so feeble now, but I was telling the truth.
“Excuse me for giving a shit about you.” His nostrils flared, and I could smell the beer and liquor on his breath. He smelled like sweat and sex and his own heady scent. “Was I supposed to apologize for that?’
“No. You were supposed to let me help you for a change. And you were supposed to stay out of it.”
“Explain to me how you fucking Tristan was supposed to help me.” He laughed incredulously. “Did you think that was all you deserved? Why would you let him do that to you? Why, Remy?” His voice was low and steely, and cut me to the core. “Did you fight him? Did you punch and kick? Or did you just lie back and take it?”
I struggled to break free of his hold, fighting off the memory of that night with Tristan. Shane pressed the length of his body against mine and cupped my jaw, tilting my face up to his. Unshed tears swam in my eyes and distorted my view of his face. A face I loved but didn’t recognize.
“You can fight me, but you couldn’t fight him? Why didn’t you fight, Remy? Why didn’t you tell him you didn’t give a shit what he said? It was my responsibility to take care of you. My responsibility to take the fall. In the eyes of the law, you were a minor. Too young to give your consent.”
A whimper escaped my lips. “That’s not how it happened. You know that.”
“How long… how long had he been hassling you?”
“What does it matter?” None of this mattered anymore. We couldn’t do anything to change it.
“For once in your goddamn life, tell the fucking truth, Remy,” he shouted. “It. Matters.”
I took a deep breath and averted my head. “He targeted me in eleventh grade. He said he wanted me… that I was a whore just like my mother. I told him he would never have me. Is that what you want to know, Shane? Why did you have to go after him? I tried to stop you.” Tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t stop them from falling. All our dreams. Our whole future destroyed because of Tristan Fucking Hart who was now dead. How could any of that have happened?
“Why, Shane?” I squeezed my eyes shut, going back to a time and place that had become the stuff of my worst nightmares. “Why did you have to go after him?”
Shane staggered backward, swaying on his feet, reeling as if the reality of everything that had happened was just hitting him now. “Because he hurt you. And I thought you were worth fighting for. Were you, Remy? Tell me. Were you worth fighting for?”
When had Shane learned to be so cruel?
That was the thing about the ocean. It was wild and unpredictable. It could be dangerous, showing no mercy. Shane once told me that it was a mistake to turn your back on the ocean. The thing you love most could destroy you. And Shane… he was still my ocean.
I sagged against the wall, my legs shaking, and watched the emotions play across his face. He looked so sad and so lost right now—bereft—and all I wanted to do was make it better. Rewind the years and go back to a time when he loved life. When he loved me.
“Remy, how did we get here?” he asked, his voice raw with emotion. His head dropped between his shoulders and he rubbed the back of his neck. I couldn’t bear to see him in pain.
Closing the distance between us, I wrapped my arms around him and I held him tight because I didn’t know what else to do. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I kept repeating the words over and over, my tears running down my face and soaking his bare chest. His arms wrapped around me and he buried his face in my hair. We held on to each other as the world spun around us and Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” piped from the speakers. We were so broken. How could I have ever believed we could fix this? What we’d once had together—the good parts—was nothing but a distant memory. But when he’d been mine, it had been the best thing I’d ever known.
Shane’s hands slid down my back and he hooked his hands around the backs of my thighs, lifting me off the ground. My legs cinched around his waist and he started walking. Carrying me across the living room and up the stairs, his gait drunk and unsteady. But still, I trusted him to carry me. I knew he wouldn’t drop me. I knew he wouldn’t stumble and fall. I had always trusted him. With my life. With my heart. With the secrets of my soul.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pulling back to look at his face.
“Where’s your room?” I told him—last door on the left. “Just for tonight. You can make it better, Remy.”
I don’t know how to make this better.
He tossed me on the bed, ripped off my panties and tossed them aside. Then he undressed, and he fucked me. That was how it felt. Just sex, without love. The only difference was that I still loved Shane. I loved him hopelessly and tragically.
