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“You always make it better.”
“That sounds like a strange complaint.”
“It is when you’re the person I hurt!” She shoves me again, but her hands remain tangled in my shirt. “Why are you here? Why are you still the one coming to my room? Why are you calming me down after what Lance did to you?”
“Because you’re hurting.”
“You should let me!”
“I am letting you hurt.” I close my hands around her wrists without removing them from my chest. “I’m not going to stand here while you turn that hurt into proof that every fucking thing you fought for during the last fifteen months was a lie.”
“It feels like one.”
“That doesn’t make it true.”
“I’m packing a suitcase and screaming at the man I supposedly learned how to communicate with.”
“You’re communicating. Loudly and with a concerning amount of violence toward formalwear, but I haven’t struggled to understand a word.”
She glares at me through tears. “This isn’t funny.”
“No. You trying to force six dresses into a suitcase designed for three is a little funny.”
“Fuck you.”
“Welcome back.”
Charm releases my shirt so abruptly that the fabric snaps against my chest. She paces away from me, pushes both hands through her hair, and dislodges the final studded pin. It catches between her fingers before she throws it onto the bed.
“I’m furious with them.”
“You should be.”
Her shoulders pull back. “You asked them to keep it from me.”
“I made it clear I didn’t want any of it reaching you.”
“So I should be furious with you.”
“You already are.”
“I don’t want one of your clever answers!”
“I’m not giving you one.” I step around the dress on the floor and face her. “Be furious with me, Charm. Tell Bliss and Aura they hurt you. Tell the guys they had no right to decide you couldn’t handle the truth. None of us gets to decide our reasons erase what this did to you.”
“But you still think everyone was right.”
“I think I was right fifteen months ago.”
“What about now?”
The question stops me. Charm watches my face, and I know she sees the hesitation I can’t hide.
“You knew Lance would be at this wedding,” she says. “You let everyone prepare for what he might do except me.”
“I didn’t know what would happen.”
“You knew enough to be worried.”
