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The humor disappeared. “That’s what this is about?”
“You forgave my mother.”
“She apologized.”
“So have I.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend those are the same fucking thing.”
“I didn’t say they were.”
“You just fucking did.”
“I said she apologized and you forgave her. I have apologized to you more times than I can count, and apparently forgiveness is something you can give everybody except me.”
“Your mother can’t break my fucking heart again!” The words hit hard enough to shut me up.
Ryan stepped closer, anger tightening every line of his face. “Forgiving Crystal costs me nothing. I can accept that she was wrong, believe her apology, and walk back inside without handing her a single thing she can destroy. You are not Crystal.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because you’re standing here acting like forgiveness is a fucking prize I handed her first.”
“That isn’t why I’m angry.”
“Then tell me why, because I am running out of patience trying to fucking guess.”
“Because she knew things.” My voice climbed with the anger I had been trying to hold down since I walked onto the patio. “She stood here crying over something and I want to know what.”
Ryan’s expression changed, he didn’t want me touching that.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me because you forgave her,” I said. “I’m asking why my mother knows something I fucking don’t.”
“Because it’s mine, it’s what I went through—not you.”
“I understand that whatever it is, is yours.”
“Then respect it.”
“I am trying to. But you don’t get to stand there acting like I’m insane for realizing everyone else seems to know what is going on with you while I’m standing here with scraps.”
“What’s going on with me? You mean since I left you or what leaving you did to me? Tell me, Charm?”
“I hear things. Like tiny fragments, bits and pieces over the last fifteen months. Your fight with Briggs, your hand. I watch the way our friends watch you. They did at the cabin and they do it at this castle and now my own mother knows something and I want to know why my mother can know but I can’t?”
“Because you caused it, I just didn’t let you see the fallout!” His shout cracked across the patio. I didn’t move, and neither did he.
“I know I did,” I said. “You made damn sure of that when you froze me out.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And I respected it.”
He laughs cruelly. “You had no choice.”
