Page 181
“You lied.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You did.” My voice breaks around the word. “Because what else am I supposed to call this? You don’t tell someone you want them, spend three months making them believe they matter, buy an entire apartment so you can meet them in secret, take them on road trips, sleep beside them, plan a vacation with them and then go back to your ex-husband.”
A tear slips from my left eye before I can stop it, and I hate it immediately. I wipe at my face with the heel of my hand, angry at myself for giving him another piece of me to witness.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” I whisper.
Tristan takes a step toward me.
“Don’t.”
He stops.
The distance between us feels enormous now.
“Why do you keep choosing him?” I ask. “After everything he did to you? After he cheated on you, lied to you, made you feel like you were the problem? Why do you keep going back?”
Tristan’s face changes. Something painful moves through it, but it isn’t enough. Nothing he feels can be enough if he is still choosing Jake.
“Is it because he’s easier?” I ask.
The question comes out quietly at first, but I can feel the anger building beneath every word. “Because he has history with you? Because he knows the version of you that existed before I came along and ruined your perfectly organised life?”
Tristan’s jaw tightens.
“That’s not fair.”
“No?” A humorless laugh breaks out of me. “Then what part of this is fair?”
I press my palm against my chest, as if I can physically ease the pressure there. It does nothing. My heart keeps beating too hard, too fast, like it is trying to break out of my body and run somewhere safer.
“You used me.”
Tristan flinches.
It is small. Barely there.
But I see it.
Good.
Some ugly, wounded part of me needs him to feel it. Needs him to understand that he does not get to stand there with that controlled, devastatingly unreadable face while I walk away carrying every consequence of what he did alone.
“You used me to pass the time,” I continue. “You used me because I was there, because I made you feel wanted when Jake made you feel disposable. You used me until you grew bored, or scared, or until he decided he wanted you back.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did.” My voice rises before I can stop it. “You did, Tristan. And the worst part is, I let you.”
“Don’t put it that way, Maksim.”
His voice cracks.
The sound stops me for half a breath.
I have never heard Tristan sound like that. Not when he is angry, or even when he has been pushed to the edge of whatever control he keeps in check.
