Best Served Cold

He rubbed his hand down his face, looking out to the water before bringing his attention back to me. “I didn’t open the store to get back at you, Rae. I couldn’t get revenge for something I didn’t understand. You never told me why you broke up with me. Your reason was bullshit, and you fucking knew it. I opened the fucking store so I could talk to you. I thought that if we were close, I’d eventually get you so pissed off you’d storm in there like you did yesterday and rip me a new asshole.”

My throat tightened.

“I didn’t fucking do anything to hurt you. I could never do anything to hurt you. Don’t you get that?”

“Don’t you get that you did? Whether you meant it or not, you did hurt me.”

“Yes. Yes, I get it, all right? One hundred percent. I was wrong, and I hurt you, and I fucking hate myself for it.” He ran both hands through his hair. “But it was never my intention. Ruining your life was the last thing on my mind when I opened that damn place. If I could go back, I’d change it all. I’d show up on your doorstep with pie and casserole and clean your floors and wash your car instead of fucking hurt you.”

I covered my face with my hands. I was frozen in place. I could barely breathe without my chest fucking burning. I knew what he was saying, but that didn’t mean it made any sense to me.

“How could you not know that would hurt me?” I dropped my hands and met his regretful eyes. “Seriously, Chase? How could you not know that you weren’t just digging in the knife, you were twisting it and carving patterns in my skin?”

“I didn’t think!”

The pain in his eyes was so real and raw that I had to be totally heartless to think he was lying.

“I didn’t think,” he said, softer this time. “All I wanted was you back, Rae. You ignored me and dumped me without another word. You couldn’t even be on the same side of the street as me, and I’d done nothing but be there for you. I could understand if I’d done something wrong, but…”

His trailing off caused the lump in my throat to jump up and choke me. I half-coughed, half-sobbed, and I covered my face once again to make it stop. But it didn’t, and the tears I’d kept in since I’d seen him yesterday burned my eyes again.

I wanted to cry this time. I wanted to let it all out so I could let go. I couldn’t, though. This wasn’t the time or the place. I still didn’t understand. I didn’t know what he was saying.

No, I did. I knew what he was saying, but what sense did it make? None. It was all crap by the time it reached my ears.

“Don’t blame it on me!” My voice was stronger than I felt, once again, adrenaline pumping through my veins like it was my backbone. “You made the choice to open that store! You made the choice to hurt me!”

“No, I didn’t. I mean, I did. I opened it, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. Jesus, fuck, listen to me, Rae.” He held his hands out to the sides, all but begging me to listen to him. “I loved you. I—”

“You don’t hurt the person you love!”

My heart pounded, my chest heaving. My words echoed across the beach in a bitingly cold vibration that clung to my skin like poison.

“You don’t hurt the person you love,” I shouted. “You don’t do that to the person who means everything to you!”

“And what you did to me? Was that love, Rae? Ignoring me and leaving me fucking heartbroken?”

“Don’t you dare blame your bad choices on me!” The tears fell freely from my eyes, all the pain from the last two years blossoming inside me. “You said all the things you wished you did differently. I wish I’d done things differently, but you—you, Chase. You fucked it up so much.”

He fisted his hair, his frustration evident in the tensing of his arms. I could taste it on the salty sea air, how angry he was. I could see it, taste it, feel it.

“You fucked up, too.” He wasn’t even trying to keep his cool anymore. He was shouting the same way I was. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried to be so fucking nice to you for two years, and where has it gotten me? Standing on a beach as fucking gutted as I was the day you told me we were done?”

Sucker punch to the gut.

“Don’t feed me that shit!” I was screaming at him now, my voice as strained as my heart felt. “You don’t feel shit for me. You’re worried I’m going to run you out of business the way you tried to run me out of it. Do you think I didn’t notice how you only really tried when I put that fucking sign on the door?”