Page 230 of Face Off

“He dragged Lance’s addiction, my mother’s murder, and every foster home I survived across that terrace because he wanted to prove I was born beneath him. He went after Cade for being my brother and Briggs because he saw another place he could hurt me. Then he hit me twice.” I point toward the door. “That was my fucking fight. You had no business trying to force yourself into it.”

“He did all of that because of me.”

“No. He did it to me.”

“He hates you because I loved you.”

“He hates me because I exist outside his control. Stop making his choices an extension of your feelings.”

Charm recoils. “I’m not.”

“You came into my room to confront me about your mother’s divorce while her husband’s fist is still printed across my fucking face.”

“Because I am tired of being the last person to know what is happening in my own life!”

“This was not your life. It was mine.”

“Lance trying to ruin you is part of my life.”

“You learning about it is part of your life. Living through it belonged to me.”

Charm presses one hand against her chest. “So, I’m allowed to know what everyone else decides belongs to me, but you can keep everything you want hidden.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You come after every secret I kept from you. You throw every lie in my face and tell me how unforgivable it was that I decided what you could handle. Then you stand there with an entire life everyone knows about except me and call it privacy.”

“You do not get to compare those things.”

“Why? Because your reasons are better?”

“Because I did not make promises to you while secretly knowing I would break them. I left you. You were no longer entitled to my life.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? You keep demanding details about what happened after we ended as though losing access to me was another betrayal.”

“I’m asking because you keep using that pain against me while refusing to tell me what it is.”

“You already know what caused it.”

“I know what I did. I don’t know what it did to you.”

“That belongs to me.”

Charm wipes furiously beneath her eyes. “You won’t let me apologize for what I did, but you will stand in front of two hundred people and fight Lance over it.”

“That confrontation was about me, Charm. Not you.”

“Then let me apologize.”

The demand strikes the room harder than her shouting. I turn toward the nightstand, grab the mezcal, and pour more into my glass.

“Not tonight.”

Charm releases a broken laugh. “You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep trying to force the conversation whenever you decide you need it.”