RHETT

          Unsurprisingly, guilt is quick to set as soon as I send the final text to Brie.

          Even though I'm expecting it to, the intensity of it catches me by surprise, hitting me hard like a freight train, and I can't count how many beats my heart skips in the meantime. It's not just because of what I've just done to Brie, especially after we've both waxed poetic about being honest and communicative in relationships.

          To make myself feel better about what I'm doing and attempt to keep most of the guilt at bay, I convince myself I'm not actually lying to her—not in the direct meaning of the word. If anything, I'm omitting the full truth—which I'm aware can sometimes be almost as bad as the real thing—but the fact that I'm dreading her reaction when and/or if she finds out about this should be enough to make me do a double take and pull out my phone again to apologize.

          However, I don't. I don't know why I don't, but maybe that's the real problem—I'm not nearly as introspective and self-aware as I've been fooling myself into believing.

          I don't like using Andy like this, especially when he's in a vulnerable state and needs actual support, but that part isn't a lie. I am going out with him to try and distract him from the utter chaos his life currently is in, and I could probably be out of campus by now had I had it my way.

          Magnolia, on the other hand, as she always does, has thrown a wrench in my plans. It's what she has been doing to me ever since we first met, throwing my life into the opposite direction I want it to follow, and the worst part is that I can't fully blame her for it. Not everything she does is necessarily manipulative, but there's no denying she has changed things for me multiple times in the past.

          Even when I was just attempting to focus exclusively on hockey, she swept in, caught my eye, and stole the show. During the situationship, everything was on her terms, with me somehow still getting stuck with a manwhore/womanizer reputation even though we appeared to be together in public. 

          She, too, hooked up with other people—there was never a conversation about exclusivity, only about mutual respect, which was a broken promise by the time her academic paper saw the light of day—but I know she would've certainly gotten the shorter end of the stick if anyone had chosen to pay any attention to that. Double standards and all.

          So, with her presence here outside of the rink, wanting to be all candid, there's no way I'm not freaking out. Even without the manipulation side of things, I know Magnolia Hawthorne, and know nothing she does ever comes out of the blue. Nothing she does is ever not thought through with an impressive degree of detail, so it's easy to know there's an agenda here. I just wish I knew what it was, that it didn't need to occur now, or that it didn't involve me, but maybe this is a conversation we need to have for the sake of closure—for both of us.

          "I'm gonna go ahead and give you guys some privacy," Andy declares, somberly. Magnolia's head instantly snaps towards him, like she forgot he was there, but I didn't. His presence right next to me, tall and protective even when he's slumped forward in heartbreak, is what has kept me afloat through the whole Magnolia thing, helping me stay rational. It might not be the healthiest kind of dependency and it's something I'll have to be able to do by myself eventually, but, for the time being . . . "I'll head over to Mona's, find us a table, or something."

          "Thank you," Magnolia says, while I argue,

          "You don't have to go."

          Andy shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. This cold is no joke, even for people who spend as much time in an ice rink as we do. "I'm not getting involved in this, Rhett. Sorry. Figure out whatever you want to say to each other, I don't care, but then remember you'll have to find a way of explaining all of this to Brie, and I won't be there to serve as a buffer. Ask my sister."

          He does just that, leaving with his head down and hands still tucked into his pockets, but I can't even allow myself to think of him as a traitor. Nothing he does will ever hurt me as much as what Magnolia did, after all this time, and, if I were a better guy, maybe I'd accept her apology.

          Perhaps I'd even find her remorse endearing or I'd give her a second chance at a friendship, the one thing we should've pursued years ago instead of jumping headfirst into a poor excuse for a relationship neither of us wanted or was prepared for.

          However, I'm not.

          Even then, in spite of it all, myself, and everything that has happened between me and this girl, I still choose to try and hear her out, align my moral compass just enough to know that at least I gave her an opportunity. It's probably more than she deserves or what I'd be offered if the roles were reversed, but it helps me sleep at night.

          "This is really not a good time," I tell her. "I need to be with Andy right now."

          "I'll make it quick, then," Magnolia retorts, tugging at her sleeves. They've been pulled down so they cover most of her hands, leaving just a portion of her slender fingers uncovered, and I realize, with a sharp stab to the heart, that it's a gesture I've seen Brie do. "I'm sorry for ambushing you like this, especially after that game. It feels like I can never get a hold of you these days; if we were on better terms with each other, I'd joke that you're actively trying to avoid me."

          "I am trying to avoid you."

          "Which is why I didn't make the joke."

          I huff, expelling a cloud of warm air from my mouth, and cross my arms. "Get on with it. What do you want from me?"

          Once upon a time, when she looked at me with those big blue sad puppy eyes, I would have dropped everything to please her, would have done anything she asked me to do. I was that desperate for her approval for a reason I can't, for the life of me, recall now; now, all I want to do is not be around her. The fact that I trusted her once feels so foreign after experiencing such a brutal kind of betrayal.

          "I want us to have a proper conversation, like I told you at the party the other night," she reveals. The wind whooshes around us and I hold my breath so I won't feel the scent of her cologne. Just thinking about the all too familiar scent of citrus fruits and vanilla nearly triggers a raging anxiety attack. "You've been avoiding me, so—"

          "Can you blame me? The last time we had a proper conversation, you used it as fodder for an academic paper."

          "—I had to force myself to be here, watch the team lose—"

          "Trust me when I say it doesn't hurt you nearly as much as it hurts the team. You were the one wanting to come watch the games, weren't you? And I was the one ruining that for you?"

          She shoots daggers at me with her eyes, now narrowed. "Can you please let me finish one sentence?"

          "Can you please get to the point?" I shift my weight from one leg to the other. "I have places to be, conversations I need to have, and these plans don't involve you. In fact, I'd be perfectly content if you stayed out of my life. Closure, and all."

          Magnolia swings back and forth in her heels, filled with childlike whimsy that, once upon a time, I was drawn to. I wanted to know how she stayed optimistic, a glass half-full kind of girl, even when everything felt bleak. "The point is quite simple. I'm sorry, Rhett. I really am. What I put you and your family through was unacceptable"—I scoff; 'unacceptable' is a mild way of describing what happened—"and inexcusable. I don't expect you to forgive me right away, soon, or even at all, but I still hope you know I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Neither of us went about things in the best way possible, but I shouldn't have aired all your dirty laundry for the sake of an academic paper."

          "No, you shouldn't have." She stiffens, even though I'm just parroting her words back at her. "To be honest, it feels like you're apologizing just so you can feel good about yourself and ease a guilty conscience. Whatever helps you sleep at night, right?"

          "I know that's how it might come across, but I promise that's not how I'm feeling or why I'm doing this. If I didn't care about making things right, I wouldn't be going through this much trouble to find you and talk to you. I just want things to be stable. I can't change the past, I can't pretend I didn't do what I did, but we both fucked up. We were both horrible to each other—me for what I did, and you for how you treated me afterward. Even if some of it was justified, things spiraled out of control."

          "Even after what you did, when I was supposed to protect myself and my family, I was focused on protecting you. I took the fall, remember?" A muscle in her jaw throbs, a hint her perfect composure is slowly crumbling. "Everyone thinks I was the one to break your heart and rubbed it in your face by hooking up with people at parties I knew you were attending. I didn't want your reputation to be ruined."

          I've made mistakes. I know that. I know it was inappropriate retribution and somewhat contradictory, with me trying to protect her but still being unbelievably mean to her, but I know I wasn't nearly as terrible as I could have been. Other people in my situation might have handled things different, but I had other things—and people—to consider. I couldn't risk staining my dad's legacy, so I made sure to shoulder the blame for everything.

          In a way, I've done my time. I'm fresh out of the slammer now, rehabilitated and cured from my womanizing ways, but still hanging on by a thread. I'm a model athlete.

          Please, please, please let me get my way this time.

          "I shouldn't forgive you, and I don't want to," I tell her, through gritted teeth. "I don't want to give you the satisfaction of winning. Whatever I've done to you, it will never be nearly as bad as what it was a response to."

          "You're well within your right to feel that way, and I understand. I just want you to know I never meant . . . I never meant for any of this to happen. I should've told you the truth right away. I should've asked you for permission. I don't know why I didn't; maybe I thought you'd say no and leave me stranded, I don't know, but I can't change any of it. I can only hope things will be better moving forward, even if you never forgive me."

          The fact that she thinks I wouldn't have understood, that I wouldn't have helped her if she asked shatters me, but I bite my tongue. I've already played the victim way too much in this conversation, and I think it has already run its course. We won't make any progress and we're bound to snap, everything about us being so damn explosive I fear I won't escape the flying debris.

          So, when she leaves, my chest doesn't feel any lighter.

          I quickly figure out why, though.

          "You know, when Mona joked about you going out to dinner with Andy in a wig, this wasn't what I was picturing," a dry voice comments, and my whole world collapses right then and there.

          "I can explain," I say, which is the stupidest thing that could have come out of my mouth in a situation like this. By the way she instantly stiffens when I close the distance between us in a few quick steps, I can tell we're both thinking the same thing. Great job, Rhett. Way to ruin everything again. "I know it looks bad, but—"

          A humorless laugh escapes from her throat. "The words every girl wants to hear. I look and sound like a jealous girlfriend when everyone tells me not to worry about—about her, but then you go and lie to me about being with her. You go and bring my worst fears to life. What am I supposed to think? Who am I supposed to believe? I've been made to believe that I was crazy and overreacting and that all these worries were unfounded because 'oh, Brie, don't worry, he loves you, he hates her', and I trusted you. I believed you."

          "Hey, hey, no. All of that is still true. I love you." Brie looks away from me, bottom lip trembling in spite of her fury. "This looks absolutely terrible, but I was—and still am—going out with Andy. Magnolia ambushed us on our way out of the rink, and he went on ahead. I can explain later and I will, I promise, but nothing happened between me and her. Nothing. She wanted to apologize—properly this time, not in the middle of a frat party—and I figured we could both use some closure. I heard her out, she heard me out. She won't be an issue. She told you that."

          "I feel so fucking insecure next to her and she just . . . she just goes and decides to be the bigger person. She apologizes. She gets an explanation. It's certainly more closure than I ever got."

          "Brie . . ."

          "No, it's okay. I understand. I'm being stupid, right? I'm being stupid, childish, and petty." She raises a hand to wipe her cheek with the heel of her hand, expelling a shaky exhale through her mouth. "It's different. There was a lot more at stake when you two broke up, so it makes sense. Your family's name was involved."

          "We never actually dated."

          "Doesn't matter. Semantics. You were still sleeping around with other people."

          "It matters to me. Brie," I insist, gently holding her wrists, and she almost shatters right in my arms. "Look at me. Just because it wasn't an actual relationship, it doesn't mean that the outcome didn't hurt; you told me that yourself, remember? It also doesn't mean that you didn't deserve closure and a proper apology, because you did. I fucked things up with you, and I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

          "Yeah, whatever. It's fine." She sniffles. I know it's not fine. "Go and be with Andy. I won't be in your way."

          "We'll talk later once I'm back, okay? I'll explain. You'll get to tell me the good news, too."

          Brie gives me a one-shoulder shrug. "It's not important."

          "What's important to you is important to me."

          Something blazes in her eyes. "Seriously, Rhett. Don't let me stop you from doing what you want to do. This is me giving you room to breathe."

          I should tell her I don't need space. I should tell her the only thing I need and want right now is her.

          However, I don't. Once again, my inaction and my passivity ruin everything.

          And she's the one leaving me.

ᓚᘏᗢ

          Brie is in my room when I get there, hours later, curled up in my bed while wearing one of my hoodies. It's not the first time she has done this—and I selfishly hope it won't be the last—so I should've gotten used to this sight by now, but there's something about it that still feels so surreal to me.

          The self-sabotaging side of my brain attempts to overpower everything else, every bit of rationality remaining, convincing me I'm only one major (or even minor) screw up away from losing her for good, like my happy days with her are numbered.

          She's not asleep, though she pretends to. The soft movements of her shoulders as she breathes are too irregular and unnatural for her to have fallen into a deep slumber, but I decide to give her the win this time. Her victories are my own, even after the team's spectacular loss tonight and all the pain I keep putting her through.

          I quickly change into my pajamas, being as swift and silent as possible so as to not disturb her, even though it slices my heart in half to hear her stifle a sniffle and the tiniest of sobs when I have my back turned to her. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, forcing myself to pretend to not have noticed it, and, when I occupy the empty space in the bed next to her, an arm curled around her tiny body, the way she relaxes against me feels like coming home.

          You don't destroy your home, though. And yet, it's all I've been doing to her.

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

apologies for the delay. in the meantime, i've gotten halfway to the next chapter, so there's that.

here's a quick explanation why the latest chapters have been slower: i had a pretty large backlog of chapters up until ONC rolled around and, since that was my priority, i wasn't really writing too much for FEMALE GAZE and focused more on HIT REWIND. the backlog ran out.

to add to that, my motivation has been very very low. it's incredibly heartbreaking to see engagement absolutely PLUMMET in chapters from brie's point of view and/or chapters that don't focus on brie and rhett's relationship. i know this is a romance, but they're people outside of their relationship with each other, and brie is the main character. ignoring her personal accomplishments simply because they're not related to rhett is extremely hurtful.

last year, i relapsed pretty hard re: my eating disorder. it's been getting worse. i'm going into inpatient treatment soon-ish, whenever that might be, and i don't know how updates are going to work. i can schedule them, but i'll have to have them written and ready to go. we'll see lol

also i really don't want to hear about how you don't want to read this book because you don't want it to end. no one WANTS to be told people don't want to read their book for whatever reason. keep it to yourself.