“I know that. You know that. But no one, not me and not even you, could change the way he felt, especially after that Christmas when he brought me to your house. I just want to let you know, I didn’t want to go,” she said. “I didn’t want him to be there, because I knew what it would do to you and him.”

My heart turned over heavily. “Kristen, I—”

“The entire time we were together that guilt festered. It was an open wound spreading into every aspect of our life,” she interrupted as tiny darts of pain shot across my palms. “For six years, you were all that he would really talk about.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Her cheekbones turned pink. “He was already around your family, but I know he talked to your mom about you. I overheard them on multiple occasions, and I never said a word to him about it. I thought that if he knew that you were okay, that you were doing fine, he’d eventually let it go and fully be a part of us—of our future. He never did. And he never stopped talking about you.” She let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “How do you think that made me feel? It was worse than being with someone who was in love with someone else.”

Unable to say a word, I pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips.

“Actually, I would’ve preferred that he had loved you. At least I would have lost him to someone he loved. Not to someone he felt this twisted sense of responsibility for.” Her red lips thinned. “I even asked him, right before he ended the engagement, if he was in love with you—if he had spent six years with me loving someone else.”

The room was still whirling, and I didn’t want to hear what she was about to say, but I didn’t stop her. The woman who delivered the epic verbal bitch slap was gone. I was frozen in my chair, unable to stop this train wreck.

“He said he didn’t. Not in the way I was afraid of,” she said.

My gaze flew to hers, and I got what she was saying. I didn’t need to read between the lines. She just told me that Brock didn’t love me. Truth was, she might be right. We hadn’t exchanged those words, and finding out if he loved me or could love me the way I loved him, had always loved him, was mine to discover from him. Not from Kristen.

But it was too late.