Page 120 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I just… I don’t know if I can trust you.”

He takes another step towards me, and I don’t retreat this time, but I wrap my arms tightly around myself.

Noah’s arms fall to his sides. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before.”

“You mean, before the entire school saw me topless?”

He clenches his fists. “Yes. Before that. I was trying to tell you that I’m sorry for taking out my anger on you. It wasn’t fair. I haven’t been fair to you.”

I stare at him, trying to decide if this is really happening or if, when I fell, I hit my head.

The latter would certainly make more sense.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, moving closer, his dark eyes sorrowful. “My family was fucked up, and I didn’t realize it. Rather than admit my dad abandoned me and my mom, I blamed you. It was easier to think you caused it. It was easier for me to believe that no one can be trusted and everyone is out to get me than to think that my own dad didn’t love my family enough to stay. I know that doesn’t make sense, but—”

I shake my head. “No, I get it.”

“You do?”

I wish like hell I didn’t, but isn’t that what I’ve done with my mom?

She treats me like shit. Rather than blame her and admit she doesn’t love me, I blame myself.

I’ve spent years morphing myself into the kind of person she wants me to be—the kind of person everyone expects me to be—rather than being myself.

“It’s easier to blame your problems on something you can control. You could blame me and choose to end our relationship, and I can blame myself and choose to believe my mom might one day care about me.”

His mouth turns down in a sympathetic frown. “Exactly.”

I look down at the ground and kick a tree root with the tow of my shoe. “You didn’t sign me up to be The Sacrifice?”

Suddenly, Noah’s hands are on my arms, and he’s pulling me against him, cradling my head against his chest.

“God, no, Penny. No. I didn’t. I’m…I’m so fucking sorry.”

Tears fill my eyes once again. I try to blink them back, but they come anyway.

Noah feels me shaking and holds me at arm’s length, worried eyes scanning my face.

“What is it?”

I give him a soggy laugh and wipe my nose with my sleeve. “We’ve really done some damage to each other.”

He bites his lower lip and nods. “Yeah, we have.”

“I think this relationship might qualify as toxic.”

He nods and then freezes, one dark brow lifting. “Relationship. You said relationship.”

Maybe it would be smart to be done with Noah.

To start over and try to forget any of this happened.

But when I picture my life, I can’t seem to imagine one without Noah in it.

When I try, there’s a yawning blank space where he should be, a Noah-sized black hole that eats away at everything else until there’s nothing left.

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