Confessions in the Dark (22 page)

“He left.”

“Huh?”

“He left. Like, right after we got here.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. “Excuse me?”

She took a few steps farther into the living room, and she'd been wrong. Max wasn't just curled up on the couch—he was curled up into himself, knees hugged tightly to his chest. His tablet game lay discarded beside him, and a hundred alarms went off in her mind.

“What happened?”

And it was like Max broke. He turned wide, glassy eyes on her, his whole face twisted. “I didn't mean to. It was an accident, I swear.”

She was there beside him in an instant. He went into her arms without hesitation, and he was shaking, and something inside her trembled, too.

The story poured out of him then. How he'd been a brat and he'd made Mr. Cole mad, and he'd hit him with his chair by mistake; it had all been a mistake. She held him tighter as he pointed to the shattered pieces of the mug she'd made with her own two hands. Max's and Cole's papers were still strewn out across the table, soaked through.

“And he got really quiet, and he told me it wasn't my fault, but then he left. I thought he'd come back, but he didn't, and I locked the door the way he told me to, but...”

“But you've been alone.” Serena's voice came out quiet and strained and foreign to her own ears. “For hours.”

“I didn't know what to do.”

How would he have? He was a big kid now, and it wasn't like they never left him by himself, but never for this long.
Never
without knowing when someone would be back. He hadn't even had a phone; he couldn't have called her or her mom or anyone. If there'd been an emergency...Her throat locked up with the mindless terror of it.

What had Cole been thinking?

More than once, Cole had tried to explain the anger that took him over sometimes, yet she'd never truly understood it until now. She'd been so preoccupied with her concern for her sister. She'd known she was pushing, but...

But she'd asked Cole to do
one
thing for her—just one thing, one afternoon, even with the promise of making it up to him later, and he'd let her down.

She swallowed around a heat that was brighter than anger and more encompassing than fear.

Max lifted his head from her shoulder. “Do you think he's okay?”

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

Oh God. She replayed the whole story Max had just told her, and it had started with Max bumping Cole, with shoving his chair into his leg. If it had been his bad leg...

That proud, stubborn man. It would have been just like him to keep a brave face and retreat to lick his wounds in private.

She had to go check on him.

She wavered, though. She couldn't leave Max alone after all of that. Torn, she rocked him back and forth.

“I'm sure he's fine.” She had to believe that. Penny would come to get Max soon enough, and the second she did, Serena would go upstairs and find out what the hell was going on. “When are you getting picked up?”

“Penny said you're supposed to drop me off.”

Of course. Crap. She'd said in her text that she wasn't sure how long she'd be stuck downtown. Serena would run him home right now, except her mom wasn't supposed to get off work until late, either. The idea of letting Cole stay there, stewing and alone for hours, left her cold.

Max pulled away, and Serena let him go. He looked better now, less shaken. She remembered what that felt like, too—how everything was easier when there was a grown-up around to lean on.

“Can we go see if he's okay?” he asked.

A whole different set of big, red alarm bells went off in her mind. Whatever state Cole was in, the last thing on earth she should be doing was letting Max go with her. At best he was in pain and at worst he'd turned his back on the kid, and there was no way in hell she was subjecting Max to any more of this.

She searched Max's eyes for a long second. He was a good, brave little guy, and if he was more concerned about Cole than he was about himself, then he was clearly okay.

Even though she felt about as strong as a wet noodle, she took a deep breath and put on her no-nonsense voice. “You are going to stay right where you are.” She narrowed her eyes. “Have you even looked at your homework yet?”

The guilty way he dropped his gaze was answer enough.

“I didn't think so.” She wasn't mad about that, but it was something to focus on for now. “Get your butt back over to that table and get to work.” She grabbed her phone from her pocket and pressed it into Max's hands. “Remember: if you play Candy Crush on this, I'll know.”

“Aunt Rena,” he whined.

“Emergencies only,” she reminded him. She tugged him close to press a firm kiss to his brow. “I'll be right back.”

“Okay.”

Decision made, she had to keep herself from sprinting to the door.

She climbed the stairs with her heart in her throat. Worry and anger twisted together into a single knot of dread, drawing tighter with every step.

Finally, she stood outside Cole's door. Fighting for calm, she took a deep, fortifying breath, but it didn't help.

There was nothing else to do. Ribs squeezing in, chest aching, she curled her hand into a fist and knocked.

C
ole couldn't
do
this.

A second knock sounded against his door, and he buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair and yanking until it hurt. It wasn't as if there was any doubt about who it was. He only had one person in his life, and he'd failed her. He failed everyone—whenever someone depended on him, he cocked it up. All this time he'd been pretending with this woman, playing house and making as if he were normal. The bottom had been bound to fall out eventually.

And eventually was now.

The third time she knocked, she called his name, voice high. Worried or maybe angry or maybe both, and that was the thing that finally launched him to his feet. The idea that she could be concerned about
him
...

His knee gave a cracking sort of protest, and he bit down on a curse. A restlessness crawled beneath his skin. All afternoon long he'd wanted to pace or run or just
hit
something, but he'd been tethered to his sofa, icing his knee and summoning that ice into his heart.

But as he made his way to the door, it was fire that burned inside. The hot, dense ache of his knee and the molten misery in his chest, and low, deep beneath it, that smoldering, simmering rage. It wasn't about the bullies that had tormented him. It wasn't about what he'd lost.

It was about who he was. Still.

And what he was about to do.

He threw the door open before he could talk himself out of it. Serena stood there, hand still raised, and God. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

She only became more so as she jerked her head up. Her gaze traveled the length of his body, and when she hit his leg, took in his lack of crutches, the softness to her mouth evaporated, her jaw squaring and her shoulders rising toward her ears. The heat in her eyes set the kindling of his ruined life to ignite. She was ready for a fight. Good. He'd been itching for a fight for
years
.

“Cole.”

“Serena.” He didn't so much as flinch. Didn't move aside to let her in. He stood there in that doorway, looming with all his height and with all the bitterness in his heart. He blocked her way exactly how he should have since the start.

It threw her off balance, and he wanted to laugh. What had she been expecting? A warm welcome? For him to have actually turned out to be the prince she probably imagined she'd created with her kiss?

She looked him up and down again. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don't know what you mean.” Of course he did.

“I mean.” Her voice rose higher, until she seemed to catch herself, to remember all the prying ears in the apartments around them. She glanced meaningfully toward the empty hallway behind her before turning her pointed gaze at him. When she spoke again, it was in clipped, low tones. “I mean, what are you doing here? You said you would look after Max.”

“He can look after himself.”

Her jaw dropped. “That's not your decision to make.”

“And yet I made it.” He hadn't even stopped to think about it. The choice had been so clear. “I decided—” His throat burned. “He was better off with no one than he was with me.”

Everyone was. Helen, Max, Serena. If he'd never taken her up on her offer, if he hadn't allowed either of them to get involved, they wouldn't have to be going through this heartache now.

“That's not true.”

But it was. “I snapped at him, Serena. He made one little mistake, and I
lost
it. I swore at him.” He could scarcely breathe against the memory of standing over him, finding his own hand raised and his mind a blur. “I was about to—”

He couldn't say it. She couldn't ask him to.

“I'm sure it wasn't that bad.”

“It was worse.” He'd been so close. “I told you. I can't be trusted. There's this part of me...”

One that would never be soothed. If Helen hadn't managed it, and if Serena hadn't...Two women he'd cared for, two women he'd—

God. Fuck. Two women he loved.

He loved Serena. This beautiful, kind, generous slip of a girl who'd given him more chances than he could ever hope to deserve.

He'd promised her he'd never hurt her. And yet again, he'd lied.

Choking on the ghost of a sob he'd been holding in for years, he tasted blood at the back of his throat.

And yet she was still here. She reached out, slamming a hand into the door he'd not let go of, trying to force it wider, and wasn't that just her all over? She lifted her other hand, moving to put her palm to his face, and he couldn't bear it. If she touched him, he'd go to pieces. He'd never be able to give this up.

It all fell down on him with a crushing weight. He'd already touched her for the last time. She'd brought his hands and his heart and his flesh back to life; she'd given him things he'd never thought he'd have again like love and sex and the warmth of gentle lips against his skin.

He was never going to feel that again. This had been his only chance, and it was over.

“Cole.” His name tore past her throat, jagged and raw. “I told you. I trust you.”

“And I'm telling you.
Don't
.”

Helen had trusted him, and he had killed her. He'd tried and tried and tried, just like he'd been trying with Serena, hoping against hope that he could be what they needed him to be. But deep down inside, he'd been the same man.

The same boy, scared and alone and lashing out, unable to tell friend from foe anymore.

“Cole...”

She reached for him again. He couldn't cede an inch of ground, didn't dare to give her even that much of an opening. Desperate, he grasped her wrist to hold her off, to push her away, but even that amount of contact threatened to bring him to his knees. Her skin was so soft, her bones so delicate within his grip.

He let her go as if he'd been burned. He had no defense against her, no way to shut her down except with words.

It was simple in the end. He'd been living with this angry thing inside his chest for so long, ignoring it and hating it—hating himself when it got the best of him. He'd only given himself over to it willingly this spare handful of times.

He tapped into it now, and into a pit of self-loathing so deep he might never get out.

Fire rushed through his veins. He curled his hands into fists and made his voice rough and hard.

“Don't you get it? I can't be who you want me to be. I can't give you what you want.”

He'd never been able to. Hadn't she told him? She wanted a family and a life, and none of it was anything she could ever find with him.

She shook her head, eyes glassy. “Cole, please. Can't we talk? It was just one afternoon. One little slip, and you didn't hurt him.”

But he would.

His heart cracked open. “My wife died because she thought the best of me.”

She threw her arms up in the air. “She died because it was snowing.”

“I drove her out into it. My temper. Me.”

“She made a choice. To walk away while you were being irrational, yes. She made the choice to love you.”

“And I let her. I knew it would end in misery, but I was so bloody selfish, I let her anyway.”

He'd let her love him, and he'd loved her so damn much in return.

He'd let Serena love him. It was a mistake he never should have allowed himself to make again.

“I can't do this,” he said. Even the fire in his blood wasn't enough to keep him standing anymore. He leaned against the door frame like it was the only thing keeping him up, and maybe it was. His chest, his knee, his everything—it all
hurt
.

But not as much as it was going to.

Serena's face fell. “So, what, is that it? You're so much of a coward that you have one bad day and you're done?”

The whole world went sideways on him. That was what Helen had said when he'd told her he couldn't—he wouldn't—let a child be born from his defective genes. Into his house with his rage, into the world that had turned him into this.

The truth of it had sent him spiraling, screaming, and spitting into a fit that had driven her out into a night as iced and frozen as his heart.

And he knew. This was what he had to do.

“I never should have started it in the first place.”

She looked like she'd been hit. “You regret it?”

How could he? These precious weeks with her—they meant everything to him. And yet, if he hadn't had them, he wouldn't have to have known.

“I do.”

The tears in her eyes spilled over. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have to.” That promise he'd made about never hurting her—he might be breaking it right now, but he'd hold to it in the one way that mattered.

Because he saw blond hair in his dreams, saw a woman walking away from him in tears. He heard her voice and he heard her screams.

He saw the wreckage that had been all that was left of her, and it was his fault.

Because it was the only thing he
could
do.

“Go,” he said, and it felt like a knife between his ribs. “Please.”

“I can't.” Her hand was still on the door, keeping him from shutting it, refusing to let him finish this. “I need you.”

“No. You don't.” And this was the thing. The worst thing, and he had to force it through his lips. “And I don't need you.”

The lie was poison on his tongue, was acid dripping down his throat. He needed her more than he'd ever needed anyone or anything. Even Helen, God rest her soul.

He needed her healing hands and the soft press of her lips, the light of her laughter and the heat of her embrace. The way she'd taken down his walls and put
him
back together again, turned the scraps of his empty life into a living, breathing man.

He needed her, and that was why he had to let her go.

“I don't need you,” he said again.

And that was it. She faltered, everything in her falling, her hand slipping down the panels of his door. Her gaze went to his knee and then to his face, and her mouth crumpled.

She believed him.

She took one step backward, and it was the very moment he'd been waiting for. He nearly missed it, though, his heart seizing in his chest.

This was it. Goodbye. And he wanted to take it all back. He wanted to pull her into his arms and make love to her with his whole being. He wanted to give her everything.

But all she'd get was pain and ash.

So instead he turned himself to stone. With a ringing sound inside his ears, his whole body numb, he pressed his weight into the door.

His field of vision narrowed down into that tiny gap, those inches of space between him and her and a life he should have known he could never have. She stared at him through it, eyes liquid and cracking.

He slammed it shut in her face.

And then she was gone. The impact of the closing door and his closing life echoed through his bones. At long last, his legs gave out on him. He slid down the wall until he sat there, broken, on the floor.

And thought he might never move again.

It was the loudest sound in the world.

Cole's door slammed with a bang, leaving her on one side and him on the other. Closing her out, the same way he'd been trying to since the very start, except—

Except she hadn't been able to take no for an answer.

Oh
God
.

Her stomach gave a lurching twist, bitterness flooding her mouth. How many times had he tried to push her away before? Only to have her keep coming at him, refusing to turn away. So, what, had she finally just worn him down? He'd seemed eager enough at the time, but had it all been him humoring her? Him consenting to kiss her and touch her and...and
fuck
her out of pity? Out of obligation? Or—

Her gut churned harder, and she jammed her fist against her lips to keep the bile from spilling out.

His voice echoed back to her.
I don't need you.

He didn't. Clearly. Not anymore. Her brain stuck on the image of him seared into her memory, standing in the doorway and refusing to yield. It was the first time she'd ever seen him without his crutches, and he'd looked so good. So strong.

Dizzy, she took a staggering step back and then another. His PT had been hinting at him being ready to ditch the crutches soon. Serena had been delighted by the prospect at the time. Cole was so proud—getting his independence back, being able to do things for himself again. It would be great. He wouldn't have to rely on her for rides; he'd be able to walk and take the train. He'd be able to hold her with both his arms and press her body into a wall. Into a mattress, even, hovering over her with that darkened heat inside his eyes.

She choked with the force of her sob.

Or he'd be able to close the door on her. Because he wouldn't need her anymore.

Like the last time Penny had left. After she'd stayed with her and her mother for a year, floating in and out of hospitals until she'd finally been stable again, and then she'd been gone. Leaving them with an infant who had barely gotten to know his mother, leaving them without her in their life again.

Leaving them alone.

She clenched her fist even tighter, pressing hard against her mouth until her teeth bit into her lip. It couldn't be that simple, could it? If he'd just been using her all this time, he wouldn't have taken her to a pottery class or gone through any of that crap with Upton for her.

If he didn't care about her, he wouldn't have looked at her like he was dying inside as he told her to go.

God. A fresh wave of tears blurred her vision. Just a couple of days ago, they'd been happy—maybe the happiest she'd ever been. Now suddenly he was pushing her away? Sure, he'd apparently stopped needing his crutches since then, but nothing else had changed between
them
. She'd just asked him to look after Max for one afternoon, and he'd...