Page 32 of Free to Breathe
“You don’t have the right to ask.”
I play my trump card. “Tell me, or I’ll go to your brothers-in-law and tell them I heard you screaming in an MRI machine at the hospital the other day.”
Her face turns chalk white. “If you screw me over like that, Colby, there’s no chance I’ll ever forgive you.”
“You were planning on forgiving me?” I’d held out a slim hope, but that hope is diminishing every second we speak.
“I forgave you for being an asshole a long time ago. I just decided to cut all assholes out of my life. I no longer have the time, nor the patience, for the people who aren’t worth it. It’s forgetting what happened when you’re constantly around the people I love that I have difficulty with.”
“Tell me, Corinna,” I demand, even as my heart bleeds at her words.
She slams the gate closed before leaning against it. “Let’s be clear on something. You’re just somebody I used to be acquainted with. Someone whose friendship I apparently bought and paid for.”
I wince.
“Right. With that understanding, I will say you upset me that night. Repeatedly. I ran into someone who made things worse. I tripped and fell in front of your entire house party, which was so much fun, let me assure you. Having people mock me when I was so upset…” Her voice trails off before she shores it back up. “Blood was still coming down my face the next day. I called the local ER, who suggested I come in. To rule out a concussion from my fall, there were tests. That’s how and when I found out I have a brain tumor.” She tells me this as if she’s reciting a recipe. Rote. Detached. Probably because she’s lived with it for years.
Flashes of that night come back to me. Stumbling in drunk. Flicking off the lights. Flinging Addison on the bed. Horror washes over me. Sweet Jesus, Corinna was in the room, and I personally plunged her into the darkness.
How many different ways did I betray her that night? Her mind? Maybe even her heart?
I broke every promise I’d ever made to the woman in front of me. No wonder she holds me with nothing but contempt.
I’ve held the keys to Corinna the whole time. Each tumbler of her secrets click into place, and the lock flies open. Instead of finding the way back to her heart, I see an impenetrable fortress. Instead of leaving herself vulnerable to another man, she’s susceptible to no one. Instead of showering the world with her natural warmth, she hides it, reserving it for the scant few she knows she can believe in. Instead of being the Corinna I expected to find, she’s both stronger and a shell of the woman I knew.
I have the answer I’ve been pushing for, and now I have no idea what to do with it.
Despondent, I move toward the gate. “I’ll leave you alone, Corinna, if that’s what you want.”
She lashes out in her fury. “Absolutely. When you want someone out of your life, just tell them the truth. It’s an effective way to kick them out. You taught me that.”
Direct hit.
I stop right next to where she’s standing. Her anger pulsates over me in waves. “I wish you would have told me.”
“Why? So you could have gotten your final friendship payment of a graduation cake out of me? Sorry, I think I’ll remain on the hook for that debt.”
“No, Corinna. So I could have apologized then for breaking us.”
“You didn’t break a single thing to do with me. If anything, you made me stronger.”
“By shutting down?” I ask angrily. “By letting no one in? That’s not you.”
“Since that’s what it took, yes. I’m not that girl anymore.”
“I’ll bet you still sleep with the lights on.” It’s a cheap shot, one that’s beneath everything we had shared. It’s more like something Jack would say than me. I don’t know where it came from other than the overwhelming bitterness I’m feeling.
With myself.
She stumbles backward in shock. “Get off my land before I find the right knife to make you.”
“That was crappy, and I admit it.” Where I’d normally expect to see lingering pain and fury on her gorgeous face, I see nothing. Which is worse. “I’ll leave.”
“Damn right you will.”
I open the gate. It squeaks as I pass through. “Corinna.” I pause, hoping she’ll look at me.
Of course, she doesn’t.
