In Control (The City Series) (31 page)

Porter knew what he’d done. He knew if he acted like he was really hurt, I’d fall for his performance, just as I always had.
Bastard.

My hand collided with his bloodied cheek. Years of pent up anger exploded, and all I wanted to do was take all of the bad out on him.

Quicker than I thought he’d be able to move, Porter was upright, grabbing my hands and forcing them down at my sides.

“Let go of me!” I screamed.

The beach was still empty and no one was around to save me, which was okay because I’d always saved myself. I broke free from his grip and pushed his body back down on the sand, holding each of his wrists down. I positioned myself over his chest, not enough to touch, but so that our eyes could be focused only on each other.

“How dare you act like you were practically dead!”

“How dare you act like you don’t still love me,” Porter retorted. He wasn’t trying to break away. He lay back onto the sand, almost as if he were lounging, enjoying the sun beating down on his face.

“My feelings for you are the farthest thing from love,” I hissed. “The moment you told me you didn’t love me anymore was the moment I realized I was a better person than you. Our entire relationship was a sham; the second I first saw you, I put you up on a pedestal and worshiped the ground you walked on. But when you told me you didn’t love me anymore, that’s when I knew that all along, I was the strong one.
I
was the one with the better heart.”

“Kingsley,” Porter began, trying to move from my hold.

“No! You don’t get to say anything.” I clamped down onto his wrists tighter. “You had a chance to love me for 171 days!” My jaw dropped. I said the number, the one I only kept to myself, out loud. I said the number that I
hated.

“Y-you...you counted the days we were together?” Porter’s cheeks lifted.

“That number means nothing now.”

“Obviously it does if you remember it,” he snapped back.

“Did you not hear what I said? I don’t love you!” My throat was raw with the words I’d wanted to tell him for so long. “I don’t love you!” I shouted again.

I don’t love him.

I don’t love him.

I don’t love him.

My heart was doing jumping jacks in my chest as I repeated the statement in my head.

I don’t love him.

Two seconds and I was up on my feet, not caring about the sand that had somehow worked its way into my shorts. Porter was yelling for me, but I was already running down the beach, dodging the seashells that had washed up with the tide. Five seconds passed and I could no longer hear Porter’s pleas for me to come back. It took me thirty seconds to get to the top of Wren’s driveway.

Four more seconds and I was inside, climbing the steps.

I heard Wren shouting, screaming obscenities, only they were coming from the guest bedroom, the last place I expected him to be. I moved to the doorway. Wren’s mother was sitting on the bed, yelling at Wren.

“Wren, calm down, please!” she cried. “What’s going on?”

Wren was rummaging throughout the room, grabbing my belongings from every surface, and throwing them all into my suitcase. He handled each thing with about as much care as you’d handle something you’d found in the junkyard. I watched as he grabbed my cell phone charger and yanked it from the wall, hurling it into the bag.

“Wren!” I called.

He stopped.

He whirled his body around to look me in the eyes, and it was as if time stopped moving.

The silence between us stung. I knew what I’d done, and I knew Wren’s heart was breaking right before me.

“I’m gonna let you two have some privacy,” Wren’s mother said. She stood up from the bed and as she moved past me in the doorway, whispered, “You can fix this.”

Her words gave me the ammunition to walk toward Wren.

“Don’t,” he said, his hands out in front of him. “Don’t you dare try and fix this.”

“Wren, please.” I tried moving closer, but his hands pushed at my shoulders, forcing me away. “What happened, it wasn’t what you think.”

His face went red.

My bag collided against the wall, knocking the glass lamp onto the ground. I wanted to wrap my arms around his waist and explain how sorry I was. I wanted to convince him that I my heart was filled with love, but it wasn’t for Porter.

I wanted to say all of these things, but before I had the chance to, Wren was running out the door.

I called his name...and called and called, but he refused to turn back around. He swung the front door open so hard it crashed into the wall. He didn’t bother trying to close it, knowing I was right behind him.

“Wren, please, just stop!” I yelled.

“Stop following me! Go away!”

“Please, just let me explain!”

His footsteps continued. Down the driveway. Across the small road. Down the hill to the beach, where it was still mostly empty. A few parents sat on the sand, watching as their children played in the ocean. Wren walked near the water, the waves hitting his ankles and wetting the bottoms of his jeans. His arms swung briskly at his sides and not once did he turn around to see if I was still behind him.

For so much of my life, I hated better than I loved. I pushed people who deserved to be in my life away. If I had given myself a chance to love, my life might have been different. I might not have gone through men as if they were a daily newspaper. It wouldn’t have taken me months to become comfortable with Trish. It might not have taken me so long to realize that I was over Porter and the one person I truly loved might not be walking away from me right now.

The things that had happened in my life, the man who took advantage of my body, the woman who treated me like I was her own personal punching bag—I’d allowed them to shape me. I fell in love with a boy I barely knew because he was the epitome of what I thought was happiness. That false happiness turned me into a girl who took the love she thought he had for her and turned it into her entire universe.

Hate sank its teeth into me from a young age. Jenny made me think it was because of my skin color. Mr. Henderson made me think it was because of my body.

I didn’t realize until that very second, as I ran after Wren, that somewhere along the line, I stopped hating things. I started to recognize signs of love. I started to feel things, opened my doors that I was convinced I’d locked forever. This was all because of
love
.

Wren was ten feet away from me, close enough that I could hear his heavy panting as he kicked the sand. Shouting his name wasn’t working. He refused to turn around.

“I need you!” I cried. “I need you more than I’ve ever needed anyone!”

His steps continued.

“You’re everything to me!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. My eyes burned as the wind whipped through my hair.

His steps continued.

“It was always you. You were always the one I was meant for.”

His steps continued.

I never told him these things. I’d expressed my feelings for him through my fingertips, my lips, my entire body, but never had these words escaped my mouth. I’d been terrified of him knowing the truth.

Until now.

“I—” I stopped walking, knowing I needed my whole body to say what I’d been holding in for months. “I love you!”

His steps stopped.

“I love you,” I repeated.

Wren slowly turned around to face me. The ocean waves continued thrashing against our ankles. The sun continued beating down on our faces. We stood face to face, just staring at each other, our mouths both silent.

Three words, eight letters, two smiles mirroring each other.

I loved him.