Hell, it makes sense. Brooke was fighting me from the beginning. We wanted different things. She knew what I was after, and she figured out what she had to do to get the one thing she cared about.

Only . . .

It felt different. Pretty early on, it felt like maybe sex wasn’t the only thing she cared about.

She wasn’t pushing it. She wasn’t grabbing my hand and hurrying us, getting what she wanted and getting rid of me. She was holding on and standing still, letting me lead her, trusting me, hesitating at first but finally opening up and slowly becoming the one to reach out. Saying things to me I was feeling. Even when I limited what we did because I knew my willpower with her was and always will be shit, she kept our pace. She was with me. She was willing.

She was mine, or she was a damn good liar.

Why would she tell me I never meant anything if it wasn’t true? Because I hurt her? Because I reacted?

That disc. God, fuck, that disc. I never should’ve picked it up. Never should’ve played it, not without asking Brooke what it was first. Just knowing about it, I could’ve gotten past that and enjoyed my night with her. I could’ve pretended it didn’t exist.

Maybe.

The truth is, I don’t like thinking about Brooke with anyone else. Ever. I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to run into some drunk tosser who’s been with Brooke and makes it bloody known he’s been with her, and I sure as fuck don’t want to see it happening.

Watching her with some other bloke, seeing his hands on her, touching what’s mine, thinking in that moment he has her when he never fucking came close, yeah, I reacted. I reacted how anyone would react seeing something like that.

Seeing someone you love taking pleasure you aren’t giving.

I was angry. Murderous. Rage running in my blood, and the pain, fuck, that was the worst of it. I ached in my bones. There was a hole in my chest, I was sure of it. Bile singed the back of my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

I looked at Brooke and all I could see was her with him.

I looked at Brooke, and all I could see was the woman on that disc, not the one I knew.

Not the soft, vulnerable woman I had in the alley. Or the shy one giving me a first in that photo booth. Not the Brooke who laughed and played with me, or the one who told me she loved me and that she was mine.

“Yours,” she said that day. “I thought I was yours. I want to be.”

Did I imagine it all? Did I imagine the hold she had around my heart and the tie I felt to hers? Did I imagine this Brooke?

I looked at her, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I gave her my anger and my pain. I spoke without consideration. I reacted.

I reacted, asking something I was sure of minutes before.

I was sure.

She was crying. I knew she was, but I barely saw her tears. I couldn’t focus on that. Then she spoke and her answer gutted me. Her truth.

Only . . .

What if it wasn’t? What if Joey is right? What if we were both saying shit we didn’t mean, both of us reacting, being rash and thoughtless of the other person. Not seeing each other’s pain and only feeling our own.

Is it possible?

Fuck . . . is it?

He said she’s been crying all weekend, that she’s messed up over this. Why would she be messed up if I mean nothing to her? If this was always nothing?

Closing my eyes again, I see her face, her broken, agony-stricken face, covered in tears I’m now focusing on for the first time. Really focusing on. Her pink lips trembling and her entire body shaking.

Shaking like mine.

She was shattered. Fuck, she was. I couldn’t see her suffering. Not while feeling my own. It blinded me, but now I see it. She was crushed. Devastated. Because of how I spoke, how I looked at her. My reaction ripping her apart, and my question . . .

My question destroying her.

“What do you think?” she asked me, begging me with her eyes to speak the truth for her. The only truth she wanted to say, but I didn’t. I gave her nothing because I couldn’t. I couldn’t see her.

I couldn’t see my Brooke.

“She loves you. Fix it.”

I gave her nothing, and she gave me everything. Me. No one else. She chose me.

She chose me.

A shuddering breath bursts from my mouth, blowing hot against my face.

My Brooke.

My Brooke . . . she chose me. She loves me.

Loves. Me.

And I’m the one who made her feel like she never mattered. I’m the one who treated her as if she meant nothing that day.

I’m the one who made her feel like a whore.

Pain sears in my jaw as I grit my teeth.

What have I done? What the fuck have I done?

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE?

I need to see her. Need to talk to her. Need to hold her.

Groaning, feeling a thousand needles stabbing my skull and acid churning in my gut, shredding the lining of my stomach and burning my intestines, I ball my fists and try and push off from the bed.

I get an inch. Maybe. Pain doubles me over. Scorching pain behind my eyes, in the center of my chest, blooming out to my limbs, my fingers. I feel it everywhere. I roll onto my side and hold my head. I taste bile in my throat.

I have been doing nothing but drinking the past two days. Drinking and missing Brooke. Drinking and wondering if she was always too wild for me. If maybe we were doomed from the start.

Was the sole purpose of meeting this woman to show me everything I ever wanted, and everything I would never have? Is the universe that fucking cruel?

I couldn’t answer that this weekend, or maybe I didn’t want to. Fear bonded to my tongue and imprisoned my mind.