Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
“Why do you hate me?” I blurted out, my voice trembling. I knew he ordered me to stay away, but I couldn’t. I marched toward him and blocked the door.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No. Really. When we ended things, we weren’t even together that long.”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“I am serious. Plus, before we decided to date, you said we wouldn’t let it ruin our friendship. You said—”
“I know what I said,” he hissed. He moved his hand above my head and placed it against the door. I felt my body heating as he hovered over me with his rock-hard posture. “Move, Hailee.”
“Aiden. Please. We’ll be running into one another over these next few months. I’m going to be delivering things to you. It’s best if we just nip this in the bud now.”
He grimaced, unamused. “Nip it in the bud?”
Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say. “Clean slate” and “nip it in the bud” weren’t his favorite phrases from me, that was for certain.
“Whatever issues you have with me, let’s just bury them now so we can both stand being in the same room as one another without it being awkward.”
“But I can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
“Stand being in the same room as you.”
My heart hurt from those words. I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “But why?”
“Hails!” he shouted, tossing his hands up in defeat. “Dammit, you can’t be that naïve! You honestly can’t think I’d want to come back to this town and be anywhere near you, could you? It might be ancient history to you, something that you just nip away, but that shit between us, you and me, that was real for me.”
“It was real for me, too.” It’s still real. It’s still so, so real.
“That’s funny because you didn’t seem to have a hard time abandoning it.”
“That’s not fair, Aiden. You have no clue how hard it was for me to let you go.”
“Nobody told you to let me go,” he scolded.
If only he knew the truth.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Aiden.”
“Keep your apologies. I don’t want them. All I’m saying is there’s not going to be a situation where I can be around you.”
Tears kept falling down my cheeks. It felt selfish to cry when I was the one who broke his heart. “But why?” I asked. “We could even work to build a friendship again.”
“Friends? You want to be friends with me?”
“Yes, I do.” So much more than you’d ever know, Aiden.
“No,” he spat out, crushing any small hope I’d had.
“Why?” I questioned again. It seemed like I was a child asking why to everything that left his mouth.
He placed his hands against the door, boxing me in. My back was pressed against the wooden door as my nerves sat tangled up in my gut. “Because I can’t be near you without feeling crazy. When I’m near you, my mind gets fucked up. I don’t know how to act around you. I want to cuss you out and call you names for the shit that went down between us, and then…” He sighed and shut his eyes, his face inches away from mine. His hot breaths fell against my skin, sending chills of sensation down my back. “Then I want to push you up against this door, rip your clothes off and take back what was once mine. I want to hold you, Hailee. You have no clue how much I want to fucking hold you and never let you go again. So I’m sorry. Either I hate you or I love you. There’s no in-between for me. Therefore, it’s best if I hold on to the hate because we already know what happens when I love you.” He opened his eyes, and his lips were millimeters away from mine. If I leaned forward, I could taste him. If I bent two inches forward, he’d be mine again.
His hand moved to the doorknob, and he began to twist it. “Move, Hailee.”
I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to beg for him to understand that I never wished to let him go. I wanted to ask if he was all right. I wanted to take his sadness and put it in my own soul. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to be so hurt. I wanted to hold him, too. I wanted to fucking hold him and never let him go again. Instead, I stepped to the side. He opened the door, and I left. He shut the door in my face, and I wiped my tears away.
“Are you okay, Hailee?”
I looked up to find Carly there, holding a tray of food.
“Carly. I thought you went home sick after getting the same stomach bug Sarah had?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Stomach bug? No. Mr. Lee sent Sarah home early yesterday for some reason. I’ve been here the whole time.” She walked over to me and narrowed her eyes. “You have mustard in your ear.”