Page 110 of His Heart

Brooke

When Sebastian opened the door,I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I saw the first twitch of his smile, but I glanced away and stepped past him into his house.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

I took a few more steps, trying to keep distance between us. If he held me—if he so much as touched me—I’d lose my resolve. I wouldn’t be strong enough to do what I knew had to be done.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “We’ve got the place to ourselves. I don’t know where Charlie went. Is he with Olivia?”

Oh my god, he didn’t know. “I guess so.”

“Brooke, you’re really freaking me out right now,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I hit Olivia.”

He didn’t say anything. I glanced back over my shoulder, terrified of what I’d see.

His eyes were intense, piercing through me. “What happened?”

“She came home angry at me for missing work,” I said. “We got in an argument and I hit her.”

“Holy shit,” he said. “When?”

“A little while ago,” I said. “She left. I assume she’s with Charlie now. Hopefully.”

“You guys argued about work?” he asked. “How did that turn into…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He took a step toward me, tentative like he was afraid of scaring me away. “Actually, it kind of does.”

“I got angry, and I slapped her,” I said. “That’s what happened.”

“You can tell me the whole story,” he said. “I’m not going to flip out on you.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Give her time to calm down. I’m sure Charlie’s working on that. She’ll sleep here tonight, and we can all get together in the morning. We’ll figure this out.”

“No, we won’t,” I said. “There’s nothing to figure out.”

“So, you’re just going to throw away your friendship with her?” he asked. “Over one fight?”

“Not because of one fight,” I said. “Because all I’ve ever done is fuck things up for her. She had this nice family, living in a nice house, and then I showed up. She had to share everything with me, whether she liked it or not. Her room. Her parents. Her brother.”

“I don’t think it was like that,” he said. “You and Olivia were good friends back then, weren’t you?”

“Everything fell apart when he died,” I said. “And maybe she was right. Maybe it was my fault.”

“Whoa,” he said, holding up a hand. “Stop right there. Is that what she said? Did Olivia tell you Liam’s death was your fault?”

“It was, in a way,” I said. “If he had never met me, he wouldn’t have been on the road that day.”

“Brooke, you can’t think like that,” he said.

“I put his family through hell,” I said. “I was too weak to handle his death. So I just said fuck it. And then they kept trying to help me, Seb. They kept fucking trying. And for what?”

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