“Felt?” I stress. “Or feel?”
“What do you want me to say? That I love you? You need those three words to make this real?”
I recoil. “If all I needed were words, I wouldn’t be here! If all I needed were words, I would’ve accepted Oliver’s perfect proposal! He said all the right things. He was romantic and kind and straightforward. He didn’t play deceitful little games or make my head spin!”
Archer goes completely still, like a snake before a lethal strike. His tone is dark, shaky with tightly leashed anger. “He proposed to you?”
“Yes, he proposed to me!” I snap. “Why? Does that shock you? That someone else wants me?”
“Did you say yes?”
“I…” I break off. “I told him I needed time to think.”
“Time to think?” he says harshly. “Or time to come over here and screw me out of your system once and for all?”
“Fuck you, Archer!”
“You nearly did,” he mutters. “What would your fiancé say about that?”
This moment — once blissful — has taken a turn, somewhere along the way. How very quickly our passion slipped back into painful reminders of the past.
“This was a mistake,” I say, my voice shaking. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry I bothered.”
I start to push to my feet but he catches me around the waist, pulling me back against his body. I feel him breathing hard, his chest pumping in and out like a mechanical piston.
“If you want a label for my feelings, I’ll give you one. I’ll say the words. But I don’t need to tell you something you already know. Something you’ve always known.” Turning me around to face him, he takes my hand and presses it flat against his chest on the left side, where his heart thunders like a violent summer storm. With his face clean-shaven and his hair trimmed to normal lengths, he looks so much like his old self it makes my stomach somersault violently. “Josephine. This heart of mine isn’t mine at all. It’s yours. You’ve owned it from the start. It may beat inside my chest, but it belongs to you. It always has. It always will.”
I hold my breath.
His lips brush mine. “I love you. I will love you until I stop breathing. Until I leave this earth. And if there is an afterlife, I’ll love you there, as well.”
Our mouths crash together again, a crushing kiss that leaves me panting for air and clinging to his shoulders for support. I shake my head as we break apart, confusion swamping me despite the waves of desire crashing through my system.
“But you didn’t tell me. I don’t understand… if you love me, why aren’t we together? Why have we spent the past year apart? Why did you let me think you didn’t w-want m-me?” I hiccup, trying to keep from sobbing. I’m borderline hysterical. “I s-still d-don’t un-understand.”
“I know you don’t. But if you give me a minute, I’ll explain.” His voice is gentle as he grips my face between his palms, staring deep into my eyes. “When I woke up in the hospital last summer, my injuries were the least of my problems. The truck I crashed… It turns out, Jaxon had stashed his drugs inside. When the police found them at the scene…”
“They assumed the drugs were yours?”
He gives a shallow nod of confirmation. “They arrested me. Drug possession, intent to distribute, trafficking… I woke up handcuffed to my hospital bed.”
“Oh my god, Archer.”
“There’s more.” His fingers tighten on my cheeks. “I was still in so much pain from the surgeries, from my accident… I knew my baseball career was over. Instead of heading to college, I’d be heading to a federal correctional facility to serve time for my brother’s crimes.”
“But surely the cops had to know you didn’t do anything wrong! Surely they had to listen to you—”
“As far as they were concerned, they’d caught the criminal red-handed, at the scene of the crime. Another Reyes kid caught up with drugs. Another bad seed, like his big brother. No great surprise.”
Anger flares inside my heart. “You’re nothing like your brother.”
“Yeah, well, the cops weren’t much interested in listening to any alternative theories. And I didn’t have the money to pay for my hospital stay, let alone some fancy lawyer who could make them listen.”
“So what did you do?”
He hesitates for a long beat. I see the pain in his eyes and know, whatever comes next, is going to level me. “Someone offered me a way out. A deal with the devil, in a manner of speaking.” He presses his eyes closed, unable to look at me. “God help me, I took it.”
“What kind of deal?”
“They made the charges go away using their political connections. They made sure my family — my parents — could have a fresh start.” I swallow. “But there was a catch.”
Foreboding is unfurling inside me. My mouth is growing parched. “A catch.”
He can’t seem to say the words. And, much as I need to hear them, a part of me isn’t ready to. A part of me knows, whatever he’s about to tell me…
It will change everything.
“Who offered you the deal, Archer?” I force myself to ask.
I wait. Wait for him to answer, wait for the other shoe to drop. It nearly kills me not to physically shake the answer out of him, but I force myself to stay still and quiet. Force myself not to flinch when his eyes open again, regret and self-loathing spilling over each time he blinks.
“Your parents.”
Part of me goes numb as he tells me the rest. I detach emotionally, unable to be fully present in my body as he describes how Blair and Vincent orchestrated our separation. Much as I want to deny his words, much as I wish he’s making it all up… I know better. Beyond the ring of truth in his story, there is the undeniable fact that I know, from nearly two decades of firsthand experience, exactly what my parents are capable of. I can envision it so clearly in my mind, it’s almost like I was there that day. I can almost see their expressions — that mix of haughty entitlement and blue-blooded superiority — as they pushed us around their chessboard like pawns. Each move a perfect calculation, designed for maximum impact.
Something breaks inside me as the story unfolds in painful fragments.
Something I thought had broken a long time ago. Something I thought I no longer possessed.
Hope.
My last shred of hope that I might someday forge a normal connection with the people who brought me into this world. My last sliver of optimism that maybe, in the distant future, our relationship might develop from begrudging tolerance to parental affection.
I’ve spent my life telling myself I didn’t mind that Blair and Vincent didn’t love me. Pretending that them treating me more like a feather of achievement in their cap than their beloved offspring wasn’t a deep wound in my soul. But as I listen to Archer speak, as I hear how they manipulated an untenable situation to their own advantage… I know I’ve been lying to myself.
The pain of it cripples me.
I do not cry or scream. I do not rage in Archer’s arms. But deep inside me, a cavern of despair tears wide open, swallowing me in slow degrees. It spreads through my whole body, leaving me hollowed out. Empty of every feeling but one.