Page 110 of Not Another Yesterday
He nods. “Yeah, I know.”
We stand in the silence for a moment, allowing this place to seep into our bones. I feel rather than see Ronan shift beside me.
“Cat, I’m so sorry,” he breathes. I turn toward him. The anguish on his face forces my windpipe shut. “I fucked up so badly. So, so badly.” He lets go of me only to run his hand roughly across his face.
I part my lips to speak, but he doesn’t give me the chance. He turns his body toward me, his gaze locked on mine as if his next words are the difference between living and dying.
“I love you, Cat. I’ve always loved you, and I will love you until I die. There’s no one else for me,” he finally says, his eyes serious. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I hurt you in so many damn ways.” His breath stutters with emotion.
“I hurt you, too.”
It’s the truth, but still, my heart stings when he nods. “Yeah, you did. And you know what’s weird? Even though I’ve hurt way worse than that, for some reason, seeing you kiss that guy cut deeper than anything before.”
I swallow the boulder-sized lump in my throat.
“I’m so sorry, Ran. I… I wish I could take it back. I wish—”
“Cat,” he says, his tone soft. “I didn’t end things because of the kiss. It hurt like a bitch, but it wasn’t the reason. Not even close. I…”
For a minute, only the sounds of our breathing interrupt the silence around us.
“Please just tell me what you’re thinking,” I croak, on the verge of tears. I’m so ready for him to bare it all and allow me to bare it all in turn. “Please.”
He doesn’t respond, letting the silence sink between us like an anchor at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe this will drown us after all.
“Ran, please!” I say more desperately. “We can’t keep going like this.”
He nods. “I know,” he finally says. He inhales deeply, but I don’t dare breathe at all.
“Cat, you need to know that I never meant to hurt you. In my head it all made sense. I… I have a really hard time, like, putting the things in my head into words. Part of it is that… I just don’t knowhowto say some of the things, and the other part is…” He pauses. “I’m scared of speaking them into existence.”
I swallow, but don’t interrupt. My gaze stays glued to his, cataloging every emotion flashing across his face. There’s mostly pain, fear, and sadness. It makes me want to throw my arms around him, but I still don’t dare move.
“I wasn’t okay after my grandmother showed up,” he says.Yeah, I knew as much. “When I was in Montana last year, when my dad called me and told me my mom was forcing a trial, that’s the first time I heard that she had been abused by my grandfather. That was the first time I wondered if I was capable of doing the same—if that violence was part of my DNA or something, you know?”
I nod.
“I tried to shove that fear down, lock it away with all the other crap. It worked for a little while.” He sighs. “But then my grandmother showed up and… well, you were there for that, so…”
He drops his eyes. “That afternoon, that’s when Rashana first made contact with me.”
Every fiber in me is wound tightly. I know close to nothing about Ronan’s conversations with Rashana. All I know is she wanted to write an article about what he went through as part of her master’s degree.
“She told me she had stumbled across my mom’s case. She obviously wanted to write about it. I shut her down,” he says, stilted. “But when I walked away, she yelled after me, said something about my mom’s sister—my aunt.”
My eyebrows dip while my eyes widen. I didn’t know Ronan even had an aunt on his mom’s side. His next words make it clear that, up until Rashana’s comment, Ronan didn’t, either. “I was so confused. For a second, I considered asking her what the hell she was talking about. But I decided no good could come from knowing, so I just walked away.”
He cracks his neck. “I think Rashana’s comment was the kindling to my grandma’s fucking spark, because that night I dreamed…” His voice cracks.
Ronan slams his eyes shut, his jaw ticking once. Twice. “I dreamed,” he starts again. It seems to take all his willpower to say the words.
When he opens his eyes, they’re swimming with tears. “I dreamed I was beating you,” he chokes.
The breath leaves my lungs.
“I didn’t see your face at first. Just the sound. Your voice. Begging me not to hurt you.” His voice is barely audible now. “And then I realized it was you. You were in my dad’s living room. On that rug…” His voice breaks, tears spilling from his eyes.
I don’t think. I just move. My arms are around him a fraction of a second later.
