She shudders. Actually, shudders. “Love? You? You wouldn’t know love if it sat up and punched you in the face. So spare me that stinking pile of horse dung. What would Victoria have to gain by coming to me and making up a pile of stories? Why don’t you just tell me the truth for once?”

“I am telling the truth! Everything I’m saying is the absolute truth. You know how my parents always wanted for me to get together with her, but I’ve never been interested. Not in the slightest. I’d rather marry a rattlesnake.”

“Yeah, I know,” she snarls, grasping on the thing that hurt her the most when we were together. “I was never good enough for your parents.”

“I don’t care what my parents want, Taylor. This is my life and I want you. Victoria is nothing to me. I don’t know why she would do this wretched miserable thing, but I do know she was always jealous of you. Did you not notice how she would copy your hairstyle or how she—”

“Stop, Cole. Just stop.” She sits on the couch with her arms still wrapped around herself and rocks back and forth slightly. “I can’t deal with this right now. Not all of this at once. I thought it was bad enough when I got here, but now?” She runs a hand through her hair and it trembles. Hard.

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have to.” I want her to be able to rest. I want her to relax and not take all of this on her shoulders at once. She doesn’t need, or deserve it. I wish she would let me take care of her.

Instead of calming her down my words only make her hiss with fury. “Shut up. Just shut up, Cole.”

It’s like a slap in the face.

She looks up at me with a coldness in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. She’s like a different person. “Do you know why it’s so easy for me to believe that Victoria was telling the truth about you?”

“No, but tell me.” Though in the mood she’s in, I almost wish she wouldn’t. She could spit fire right now.

“Because I have loved you more than anyone else and you’ve let me down when I needed you most.”

I look at her sadly. “Will you never ever forgive me for that, Taylor?”

“Right. This is not the time to be sarcastic with me.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how one has to do with the other right now.”

“I’ll tell you.” She stands, and she isn’t shaking anymore. “You broke my heart that day, Cole. You left me with nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing that mattered. And what did you do? You couldn’t just admit that you were in over your head, and you didn’t want what you said you wanted. You had to get drunk to deal with it. Isn’t that right? You were so nasty. It was supposed to be the biggest, happiest day of our lives and you destroyed that for me. How can I ever forgive you for that?”

I’m stunned into silence.

She nods and looks at me coldly. “I almost let you get away with it. I did. I was willing to forgive and forget—I mean, it’s not like things didn’t work out. Now I see that I don’t trust you. I would rather take the word of a total bitch over you. If I trust you so little, how can there ever be anything real between us?”

“Taylor, you don’t understand.”

Her eyes narrow. “I’m about sick to death of you telling me what I don’t understand. I understand just fine. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t. Did you ever think of that? Do you ever think about how the things you do affect other people? Do you think about anybody but yourself? Did it ever occur to you that you smashed my heart that day?”

“That was a long time ago, Taylor.” I know it sounds lame, but it’s all I’ve got right now.

Her face twists and a harsh laugh flies out of her beautiful mouth. “What did you care, anyway? You were set for life. You didn’t have to perform for a few shekels. You could sit back, relax, and let Daddy take care of things for you. You had nothing to lose by dropping me flat. You didn’t think about that, did you?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Whatever.” She checks the clock on the wall. “I’m boarding soon. You better go.”

“Taylor, please.” I can’t let her go like this. Not like this. Not when we came so close. I take a step forward and she jerks her hand out to warn me not to get any closer.

“Go.” Her voice turns my blood to ice.

“I can’t leave you like this, with things this way.”

She blinks, and her face goes hard. “It doesn’t matter. I realized on the way here I don’t love you. I don’t even like you. I’m glad I left this god forsaken place. For a while I fooled myself, but in the hard cold light of day, there’s nothing here for me. You’re just wasting your time.”

All the air leaves my body in one big gasp, like she sucker punched me. She hadn’t said the words, but I thought it was there. I assumed it was. I thought she loved me. I felt she loved me, even if she didn’t admit it. There’s pain in my chest, radiating all through me. She doesn’t love me. It can’t be. I couldn’t have got it that wrong. She picks up her bag and puts it in her lap, in preparation to go. She’s really going to walk out of my life again.

I won’t beg. I tried my damndest, but I won’t beg. “When you discover the truth in your heart, Taylor, I’ll be waiting here for you. Always,” I whisper.

She shrugs, looking away, waiting for me to go.

So I do. I walk out of that room and out of her life.

Every footstep takes me one step further away from her. I feel like a man walking his last mile to the electric chair. That’s what it feels like. My life stretches out in front of me, a long gloomy road. What do I have to look forward to in life now that I don’t have her?

Before she came back into my life, I fooled myself into believing I was doing all right. That I had it all figured out. I didn’t need anybody. I was self-reliant, confident, in charge, in control. I had everything I wanted at the tip of my fingers and life was good. Why did I have to go to her house and turn everything upside down the way I did?

Now, I know the truth. My life is a sham. I can’t even pretend it isn’t anymore. She’s the only thing I want. The happiness, the peace, the connection. She’s everything.

She’s gone.

I walk back through the terminal and out to my car. The expensive car I used to think was so important. To the life I used to think was so important.