He jerked away from the door and started pacing across the small living area, hands rubbing over his thighs. “You still love Brock.”

“Yes, I told you that already. But I love you, too.”

He paced faster as he shook his head. “But you weren’t there for me.”

“Wil, I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t depend on you. How do I know you won’t just leave?”

I swallowed. “I don’t want to leave. I want to be with you.”

He dragged in a ragged breath and let it go. “So last night you tell me you want to stay with me. Then we had sex. After the duel was over, you were nowhere to be seen. Was that a coincidence?”

I frowned, trying to wrap my head around what he was implying. I shook my head.

Then he stopped pacing so abruptly that it looked like the momentum might knock him right over. I’d left my door open and William was staring directly into my bedroom. At the bare walls, the stacked boxes, the open, empty dresser drawers.

I swallowed a hard lump in my throat.

“You are leaving,” he said between clenched teeth, fists tightening at his sides.

If I could have sunk into the ground and melted through the floor in that minute, I would have. While he’d been in the hospital, badly injured yet still worried about me, I’d been guzzling tequila and packing everything up.

And William was all about absolutes—everything was either black or white. How could I translate this for him?

“I was afraid…” I began, but he turned away from me as I spoke, his eyes scanning the rest of the apartment, probably searching for other clues pointing to my imminent departure. That was me. Jenna Kovac, permanent flight risk.

William was having none of it. He turned back to me, fists balled at his sides. “I was afraid, too. Afraid to go into that duel and fight Doug again. Afraid I’d be defeated and lose all my friends and your tiara. I was afraid, but I did it anyway. I showed you how I felt with my actions, not just words.”

I closed my eyes, the tears welling inside their sore depths yet again. “I’m not perfect, William. I’m just human. And I have failings.”

“Yes. You do.”

That hurt. In fact, it felt like more glass just scraped across that tender organ in the center of my chest. I took a deep breath and tried not to get defensive. He had the right to be hurt. But then again, so did I. And his words did hurt.

“Can we talk about this when you aren’t so angry?”

He tightened his jaw, cheeks bulging. “I’m not angry. I’m disappointed. I need someone I can count on, and you aren’t that person. I need someone who will back what she says with actions, who won’t just say something to get her way. You weren’t there for me.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Just like you weren’t there for Brock.”

I gasped, feeling like he’d slammed his buckler into my stomach. My knees gave out and I landed on the couch, covering my face with my hands. His words cut me to the core, confirming every single doubt I had about myself—about the night Brock died and my role in it.

“How could you?” I choked out between sobs, the pain overwhelming me. It punctured me through every pore, like needles in my skin.

William said nothing. He didn’t even move for a long time as I tried to gain control of myself—and failed.

“This was a mistake,” he finally said in a shaky voice. I pulled my hands away from my face to look up at him. A few beats after that, he turned toward the door.

I popped up off the couch and sped to the door, blocking it so he couldn’t open it. “Don’t do this,” I sobbed. “You know damn well that I didn’t use you. You know…” My voice faded with a squeak.

His features were just as placid as when he’d entered. He looked as unmoved as that robot he’d often been likened to. “I don’t know.”

I tried as hard as I could to look into his eyes, but they deftly eluded me. “You know that I love you, Wil. I do.”

His lips thinned. “Those are the words you used, but they don’t match your actions. You abandoned me the second something got difficult. You won’t commit to any course of action. You’ll find a reason to run away again.”

I sucked my lip inside my mouth and gnawed on it, new tears burning like acid, pouring from the wells of my eyes and down my cheeks. “And you’ll never forgive any mistake I make.”

He closed his eyes for a good long time, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he looked into my eyes. But instead of replying, he turned the knob of the door. “Please move aside.”

I shook my head, refusing to accept what he was saying. “Wil,” I sobbed.

And for a split second, I saw it because he was looking directly at me. Pain streaked through his eyes. Then he blinked harshly and turned his head away.

I decided to chance it. What did I have to lose? I reached up and put my hand on his face, my fingertips brushing his scratchy face.

He jerked his head away from my touch. “Goodbye, Jenna,” he repeated in a low, trembling voice.

Slowly, quietly, I did as he asked, and he wasted no time before turning the knob. Then he opened the door and left the minute I was free of it.

I slid down the wall beside the doorjamb, curling into a ball, my face against my knees. I thought I had no tears left to cry. I was wrong.

Because even though I’d been prepared to throw everything away in my panic and fear earlier today, I was not prepared to lose this.

But ready or not, it was happening. And there was nothing more I could do.

 

 

Chapter 36

William

Walking away from her apartment is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s a piercing type of pain that starts in the middle of my chest and makes it hard to breathe. I feel like I’m being poked and prodded from within by sharp objects. It hurts…but that hurt, along with anger, burns like a fire.

And I couldn’t look at her anymore.

My friends stand in a cluster near the stairwell, but I don’t want to talk to any of them. I want to go home, to my orderly house and my comforting routine, where nothing is a surprise and everything happens as it should. There, I never have to rely on anyone else, and I’m never disappointed.

I can’t handle being disappointed again. Not like this. It hurts too much.