Page 133 of Worth the Fall

How could I have been so stupid not to pick up on that?

“No, Emmy. No⁠—”

“Don’t you dare call me that! Just don’t.” She takes a step back as I take a step toward her. “Please don’t.” Tears continue to streak down her cheeks, and her mascara paints their paths. She’s a broken woman, and I’ve done this to her. “Knowledge isn’t power in this case. You can’t use it to your advantage to save me from what already happened.”

“Will you fucking listen to me? I did not look at it.”

“I don’t fucking believe you!”

“Christ.” I blow a breath out and run a hand through my hair to stop myself from reaching out to touch her like every part of me wants to. “Will you quit being so goddamn stubborn and hear me? I did not⁠—”

“How can I ever let you look at me again without thinking about how you know things about me that I don’t even know? How can I ever be with you when you cared more about feeding your own need to be the hero than how it would make me feel?”

Her words cut into the room and ram like daggers into my heart.

“I trusted you, Grant. You pinky promised,” she says, her words quietly followed by a hiccupped sob. “And you broke it. Again.” With that, Emerson rushes past me out the door.

“Em. Wait.” I jog down the path after her.

“I hate you. I never want to see you again.”

It’s those words—the ones repeated twenty years apart that hit their mark. I don’t have the heart to stop her from going . . . because she’s right.

Shell-shocked, I watch her get in her car and drive away without looking at me. I stare down the empty street long after the glow of her taillights have faded and the crickets have settled into their space in the night.

At some point, I walk into the house, turn off the oven, and blow out the candle as if I’m on autopilot. My eyes burn. My stomach churns. The pressure in my chest makes it hard to breathe.

Because she is right.

I wrote her name down. It may have been a doodle, but her name was there on the top of the list.

I held on to the file when I knew I shouldn’t. My initial intentions might have been pure behind it—find out what exactly she experienced so I could . . . so I could be the goddamn hero.

Fuck.

I’m such a damn asshole.

I didn’t want to screw this up and look what I just did.

Trust is hard for her.

And I just went and fucked that up.

I clench my fist and beg for something to hit.

The problem is, the only thing worthy of being punched is myself.