She looked remorseful, but she nodded. Pointing to my jacket, to where I’d returned my phone after picking it up off the floor, she frowned and said, “Plus all of the mysterious texts you wouldn’t let me see. You have to admit that was kind of suspicious.”

I saw the flash of pain on her face, heard it in her voice. I’d purposely shut her out, and she knew it. She’d known it for a while, she just hadn’t known why. She’d thought the worst, and I couldn’t blame her. I had thought the worst about her too. I softly grabbed her cheeks. “I’m sorry…I never meant for any of this to hurt you. I just wasn’t ready…” I dropped my gaze as that damn guilt returned. “I wanted to tell you, so many times…but I couldn’t make myself say the words.” I lifted my eyes to hers and shrugged. “It was like, if I told you…it was real…and I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t.” Grief washed through me, and I closed my eyes. “I just wanted to ignore it—ignore him—but Hailey gave him my number, and he texts me every day…every goddamn day…” He was so fucking relentless. I couldn’t take it.

Releasing her face, I tried to stave off the headache I felt returning. “Every day he sends me messages, and every day I ignore him.” I lifted my head to the ceiling, feeling more worn than ever. “And I’m getting so tired of it all…I just want him to leave me alone.”

Looking at her again, I sighed. “I even thought about changing my number, so he wouldn’t have it anymore, but…I wanted to still be able to talk to you. And I couldn’t exactly tell you why I wanted to change it without…telling you why I wanted to change it. So, I get painful texts every day that I try to forget about.” And fail to forget about.

I could feel the emotion rising, starting to choke me again, and I scrubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the pain. Kiera gently rubbed my shoulder. “This is killing you, Kellan, don’t you see that?”

I gave her a darkly amused smile. I doubted I was actually dying because of this. Just emotionally dying…but that was different. That was survivable. This just…sucked. Kiera shook her head as she examined me. “No, it is. It’s eating at you…I can see it now. Have you talked with anyone about this? The guys? Evan? Have you been dealing with this alone…all this time?”