Page 35 of A Touch Charmed

“I saw pictures of the two of you at Leo’s on her Instagram.” I choked on the words as the memory once again grabbed me around the neck and squeezed. “Everyone kept texting me about them, saying you’d hooked up.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” He rubbed his hands down his face. “Jesus Christ, Thora. You know better than anyone how people in this town will say the sky is purple just to have shit to talk about. Did you see me kissing her in any of those pictures?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But you looked like you were having a good time.”

“I won’t deny I spent a lot of time at Leo’s after you left, acting like I was okay, just so I wouldn’t spend my nights alone, falling the fuck apart without you. But that doesn’t mean I hooked up with anyone that first week. I didn’t hook up with anyone for months. I kept holding out hope that you’d forgive me and come back.”

“I don’t understand.” A sickness started to roll through my stomach. “Why would she say she slept with you if she didn’t?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Deep pain clouded his eyes as he began pacing. “Is that why you blocked me? And told the security guard at your dorm that you didn’t want to see me? We could’ve cleared this shit up seven years ago.”

“I didn’t talk to any security guards.” My magic thrashed around inside me as panic began to make my thoughts race over each other.

“I went to your dorm the day you left. I was maybe four hours behind you. Fuck.” He began pacing again. “There is something going on here. Did you block my number?”

“Yes.” My mind was still reeling that he’d showed up at my dorm. “After Olivia told me you hooked up, I blocked everyone from Zodiac Cove. Not that I needed to block you, since you hadn’t answered a single one of my texts or voicemails.”

“Back up.” He stopped pacing and crouched in front of me. “I need you to tell me exactly what you think happened. Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

I told him the whole story from start to finish. How many times I’d texted him the night before, his breakup text, waiting for him at the ferry, all those hours I sat in the restaurant alone, Olivia’s FaceTime. Everything. With every word, with every expression of anger on Finn’s face, doubt began to worm its way into my gut.

“I thought you’d moved on already,” I said.

“The fuck if I’d moved on,” he said under his breath. “Give me a second. I’m pissed as fuck right now and I don’t want you to see me like this.”

He stood up and disappeared behind a cluster of bushes, but I heard him swearing and ripping branches apart. When he came back, his knuckles were bloody, but he was considerably calmer. I took his hand and healed him while I waited for him to speak.

“Okay.” He blew out a breath and shook his arms, loosening his frame. “Here’s what went down from my end. I felt like shit after I left your place. I wanted to turn right back around and apologize, but I thought you’d break up with me.”

“I wouldn’t have.” My throat was so raw, I could barely get the words out.

“I know that now.” He swallowed as he looked at me, and the weight of all that hurt and time and distance settled on my heart. Too heavy to carry alone. “I went down to the end-of-summer bonfire to talk it out with Wes. Ended up getting shit-faced and passing out. I woke up the next morning and couldn’t find my phone, so I assumed I’d lost it the night before, dropped it in the ocean or something.”

More doubt began to trickle in. “But… you texted me from your phone.”

“I don’t know who sent you that text from my phone, but it wasn’t me.” He gripped the back of his neck. “I went straight to your house the next morning, but your father had me removed from the property before I got anywhere near you. I sent you a text from Wes’s phone. You responded that you couldn’t do this anymore, the distance was too much, I pushed too hard and you needed to focus on your future without me trying to hold you back. I tried to respond, but Wes’s number was blocked after that.”

“I didn’t text those things.” My head went light as all the blood in my body rushed to my furiously beating heart. “I didn’t even think those things.”

“I know.” A grim expression darkened his features. “I think we got fucked over.”

Oh, God. My phone. I’d gone to bed with it that night waiting to hear from Finn.

And couldn’t find it the next morning until my father came over.

There was no way I’d left it on the kitchen counter. I should’ve questioned it then, but after I got Finn’s text, I stopped thinking altogether. I knew my father didn’t approve of Finn. But did he really hate him, and me, enough to do something like that?

My tongue felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and there was an angry buzzing inside my head. Spots appeared in my peripheral vision. “I don’t feel well.”

I held a hand over my queasy stomach as I crawled to the tree trunk and threw up. Pain, regret, anger, lost time, all of it rolled through me. Finn held my hair in his fist as he rubbed my back while I continued to vomit up nothing. My face was red and puffy and my heart was sore. I was a mess and I didn’t even know where to begin making things right again.

“It’s going to be okay.” Finn gathered me against his chest, stroking his hand over my hair. “We’ll fix this. No one can come between us anymore.”

“Do you think Olivia is the one who stole your phone?”

“I have no idea who took it.”

“It must’ve been. She’s the one who sent me the picture of you and Wes having a blast at the bonfire. And why would she say she slept with you if she didn’t?” I rubbed a hand over my chest. “What was in that for her?”

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