Page 105 of The Love Lie
“Why not? It’s true. I—”
“Don’t, Cooper.” Even as she tells him to stop, she grips his fingers as if they’re a lifeline. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“Baby, please.” He strokes her with his thumb, desperate to understand what’s going on in that beautiful mind. “Just tell me.”
She lifts her head and stares through the windshield. Those normally shining eyes are clouded over and glassy, clearly looking at something only she can see. The grip on his hand tightens again as she takes a deep, shuddering breath.
A second passes.
Two.
Then—
“I told you how I went to NYU without Emily. How much I hated it. How much I lied to her. How much I hid. But there’s more. Stuff I’m ashamed to admit. Even Winnie doesn’t know all of it, though she’s the only person I ever came close to telling. And before I get started, no, this is not about a boy, not really. But in order to make you understand, I have to tell you about my ex. We met the first week of freshman year, and his name is Spencer Winthrop.”
I hate him already.
The disgust must be written on his face, because Sam half snorts, half laughs as she drops her head back against the seat, still looking straight ahead. “I know. I know. I should’ve known by the name he’d be an absolute douche, but I was eighteen, without my sister for the first time in my life, scared out of my mind for her, and—yes, I’ll admit it—intimidated as hell by New York. He was a rich upperclassman from the suburbs who seemed to know everyone and everything, and he still chose me. And at the time, it felt good. It wasn’t like I hadn’t dated people before. I had my pick in high school. I went out with the class president, the quarterback, half of his teammates, and just about anyone else I wanted. But I never treated any of those guys seriously. I always had my eye on New York, on getting out, and then I was suddenly there. All my reasons for holding back were gone. And I was in this emotional turmoil I never expected. Spencer became more than a warm body. In a very short time, he became…everything. My tour guide. My therapist. My social calendar. My safe place. I was too preoccupied with school and with Emily to even think about figuring anything else out on my own. His friends became my friends. His favorite spots became my favorite spots. I changed what I wore, what I ate, how Iacted, all to fit this mold I thought he wanted. God, it’s so embarrassing, looking back on it now. I can’t believe the hold I let him have over me. It’s just so…”
She trails off with a sigh. He studies her profile, the auburn hair slipping out from where she tucked it behind her ear, the graceful arch of her neck, the freckles painted across her cheeks, that smart-ass mouth he can’t get enough of. It’s difficult to imagine her any other way than the confident woman she is now, but he understands. He was a helluva lot different at eighteen, that’s for damn sure. And it’s not a time he likes to relive either.
“Anyway—” She cuts sharply back into the story, the pain in her voice evident. “About a week after Christmas break ended, I got the call from Emily to tell me she was dropping out of FIT and moving home. I knew it was coming, but I’d been holding out hope that she would change her mind or talk to me or that we’d, I don’t know, win the lottery or something. We didn’t. And by the time she called, she had already dropped out. It was done. I’d waited too long to talk to her. There was nothing I could do. So I did what I always did—I went to Spencer. He was the only person who knew the truth about my sister, about what I was going through. All fall, he’d been there every time I cried. He’d held me. He’d wiped away the tears. He’d told me everything would be all right. And I needed that. I needed him.” She grits her teeth as her nostrils flare. “But that night, after he did all the things he’d always done—listened, dried my tears, kissed away the pain—I saw a text on his phone while he was in the bathroom. It said,Are you done with that depressed bitch yet?”
Cooper sucks in a shocked breath, silently seething. But Sam grows eerily calm, face blank, voice turning detached as she continues.
“I unlocked his phone and scrolled up to read more of the conversation. His friends had texted,Where the hell are you, man?, while I was walking over to his place. He’d respondedwith,Just got a call from Sam. She’s fucking crying again. I’m so over this shit. At least she’s an easy lay. Let me hit it and then I’ll get rid of her. See you in an hour.”
An anger more intense than anything he’s felt in his life explodes beneath his skin. Every muscle in his body tenses with rage. He’s never understood the termseeing red, but he does right now, as the blue sky pulses to an angry crimson for a beat while his heart thunders inside his chest.
I’m going to kill him.
If I ever see him, I’m going to fucking murder him.
“It’s okay,” Sam says gently and brushes her lips against his knuckles, her kiss a balm to his raw fury. When she drops her head to the side, the rest of his anger melts away. It’s impossible to be mad when she’s looking at him with those bedroom eyes. “Don’t waste your energy on him. I’m over it now, I promise. But at the time, it felt like my entire world was falling apart. I confronted him when he came out of the bathroom. He didn’t even try to deny it. He called me a charity case, and a pity lay, told me I wasn’t even worth breaking up with because I was never his girlfriend in the first place. I left his room in a daze, not sure where to go or what to do or who to call. All my friends were his friends. They wouldn’t care. All the bars I knew of were the ones he showed me and I was too afraid to run into him. I couldn’t call Emily or my parents because they thought I was having the time of my life at NYU. I had no one, nothing. I wanted to go back to my room and bawl my eyes out, but I heard those words as if he’d whispered them right in my ear,She’s fucking crying again, and I just thought,No. No, I won’t cry. Not over him.I walked back to my dorm without shedding a single tear, and I lay in my bed all night staring at the ceiling, and I decided right then and there that I would never put myself in that position again. I would never let myself get so consumed by someone else I forgot who I was. I would never need someoneso much I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. It was easier said than done, of course. I got drunk a lot. I cried a lot. I almost flunked out of my classes. I went so insane the first time I saw him with another girl that I snuck into his room, cut the crotch out of every single pair of his boxers, and left a note that saidThis should make it easier to swing your little dick.” She snorts and shakes her head. “If I hadn’t found Winnie at the start of my sophomore year, I have no idea what would’ve happened to me. But I did. And eventually, we figured out how to conquer New York together. Now, here I am.”
“Here you are, what?” he asks, frowning at the prideful tilt of her chin.
“Winning.”
“This is winning?”
She shrugs.
“Working yourself to the bone, closing yourself off from everyone, lying to your own sister all because some asshole broke your heart six years ago, that’s winning? I don’t follow, Cuj.”
“It’s not about Spencer. It’s about me, Cooper. I won’t be weak like that again. I won’t need someone so much that losing them leaves me crippled.”
“It’s not weak to need someone, Sam. You just have to pick the right person to need—someone who needs you too. And I do. I need you.”
“For now.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She untangles their fingers. An ice-cold drop of dread slips down his spine the second his skin loses contact with hers. The walls he worked so hard to disassemble stand to attention as she crosses her arms over her chest, jaw set, gaze hard. He’s terrified he just touched her for the last time.
“People fall out of love every day, Cooper. For little reasons. For big reasons. Sometimes for no reason at all. So yeah, maybe you think you need me now, but one day, that feeling might just—poof!—vanish. And where would that leave me? If I moved here, to the middle of nowhere, to your land and your house, to live with your family and your friends, where the hell would that leave me when it all fell apart? This ranch is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve ever been, but it is also my worst nightmare come to life. It’s everything I told myself I would never be again.”
“I won’t stop.”
