“No, don’t ‘Beverly’ me. I’m going on that date tomorrow whether you like it or not.” My entire body was shaking. I shoved away from the table, standing so fast my chair nearly toppled over. “I’ll go out with whoever the hell I want.”

I turned on my heel and stormed out of the kitchen, ignoring Dad calling after me and the sound of my heartbeat pounding against my skull.

“Work out whatever is going on between you two,” Dad bellowed. “I’m tired of you both fighting and giving each other the silent treatment. One day, when your mother and I are gone, all you’ll have will be each other. So, for the love of God, grow up. You’re practically adults now.”

“Typical sibling stuff,” Mom assured him. “They’ll move on.”

Sibling stuff. The words made my skin crawl. I didn’t hide the shudder I felt deep in my bones. Even my eye twitched.

Stomping into my room, I slammed the door with enough force to make the frame shake. I pressed my back against the wood, my chest rising and falling too quickly, my throat burning with all the things I wanted to scream but couldn’t.

Blake had no right. He had spent five months pretending I didn’t exist. Five months refusing to look at me, refusing to talk to me, refusing to be mine. But the second someone else wanted me? The second I tried to move on? Now he cared?

I laughed; a sound that was half sob, half something broken.

I should have expected it.

Blake didn’t want me. But God forbid anyone else did.

Before I had a chance to catch my breath, I heard footsteps approaching. Blake shoved the door open before I could stop him, stepping inside with a confidence that made my blood boil.

“You want me angry?” I snapped at him.

He slammed the door behind him, as if he belonged here. “For thinking you could go out with someone like Reese Carter? Yeah,” he hissed. “I want you angry. I want you as angry as I feel.”

I had never seen Blake truly angry before. It was almost a relief to know he was capable of it—that he wasn’t always so composed, so perfectly in control of his own emotions.

I laughed in his face. “Oh, so now you feel something? That’s funny, considering you’ve spent the last five months pretending I don’t exist. You don’t have any right to be angry. You don’t get to ruin this for me! What you did was wrong. Reese is not a bad guy.”

“But he’s not for you.”

“How would you know?”

“Because he’s not me.”

The words slammed into me like a fist to the ribs, leaving me momentarily breathless. And Blake? He didn’t even look the slightest bit regretful for what he had just said.