Page 11 of Meant for You

She flushed. “Well, my aunt’s not dressing me anymore seeing as I’m an adult and all,” she said, sounding exasperated. “So have you…filled out, I mean.” She gnawed on her lip again. “You’re…bigger.”

I nodded. “The Ramblers have a gym with a ring.”

Her brows shot up. “A ring? Boxing?”

I took a sip of my beer, stalling, not sure how she’d take this next bit. “I fight.”

“What?” she whispered, horror transforming her beautiful face.

“Not like that. Organized fights with a referee and everything.” I rubbed my hand over my cropped hair. “It’s taught me discipline, control, given me an outlet for all the aggression I’ve been carrying around. It’s been good for me, Eves.”

Her eyes were still avoiding mine. “I thought I was good for you once,” she said, voice soft and husky.

“You were…fuck, are.” I gripped my bottle harder. “But I wasn’t good for you, not the way I was back then, not where I was heading. I was this…this black shadow over you, blocking your sunlight, not letting you shine.”

She was shaking her head.

“You know it’s true. I was too involved, Eves. I was getting in your way. I knew I needed to step back, but I couldn’t, and then after what happened, when I lost control the way I did, when I scared you that night…” Fuck, this was harder than I thought. “You wouldn’t talk to me right after…”

“I was in shock. I didn’t know the full story…that he’d planned to spike my drink, what he was going to do to me—”

“Don’t,” I bit out. “Don’t talk about that fucker and his sick, twisted plans. I can’t talk about that, Eves, and not lose my damned mind.”

Her eyes were on her drink in front of her, again not on me. “I needed a couple of days to clear my head, that’s all, not a year and a half.”

When I swallowed, it was so hard it actually hurt. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“For me?” she said, eyes flashing, lower lip quivering.

Fuck. Everly cried when she got emotional. This could have been sadness or she could have been getting ready to brain me with her beer bottle.

“You thought making that decision for me was the right thing to do?” she said.

I wanted her to look at me, but she wouldn’t fucking do it. “I needed that time to get my head on straight.”

“Away from me? You couldn’t work things out and still send me the odd text to tell me you were alive and well? You had to completely walk out of my life?”

I’d thought I was a stain on her life. “I was in a bad place. And when you walked back into that diner and found me beating that fucker…” I took a steadying breath. “The look on your face—fuck, Everly, you were afraid of me.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“I saw it in your eyes, and I don’t blame you, I deserved that look. I shattered something between us that night, and I thought…”

“I was better off without you?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.” I reached out and took her hand resting on the table. Her fingers were closed tight, and I rubbed them with my own, coaxing her to loosen them. “Can you forgive me? Can we be friends again, Eves? ’Cause I fucking hate this, not being able to call or text you, come see you whenever I want. It’s torture. The last eighteen months have been fucking torture.”

Her jaw tightened. “You chose it, not me. You didn’t give me a choice.”

I stared across at her, heart in my damned throat, feeling her slipping away from me. “I don’t know how to make this up to you, how to fix it.”

She looked down at the bottle in her hand, again not looking me in the eyes. I fucking hated it. “Neither do I. I’m not sure how to get past it, how you made me feel, how much it hurt, how much you hurt me when I never thought you’d ever do that to me. Not you.”

I felt like the shittiest piece of shit on the planet. I deserved it, every word of it. The look on her face, the sadness—fuck—it took me right back to our foster home. The couple we were given to, who were supposed to protect and care for us, Wayne and Sonya, only cared about getting wasted and partying.

Eves would come to my room every night and climb into my bed because she knew she wasn’t safe, especially when they had people over, and they always had people over.

“So what?” I said. “You don’t want to even try?” I felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.