The Boy on the Bridge

For this next part, I take her hand and cradle it in mine.

“But I needed the truth. I’m not someone who lies to himself. I don’t want to live like that. I’ve done it before, and it only leads to heartache and disappointment. You were there, you know I convinced myself that my mom gave a fuck about me, and that wasn’t true. I needed it to be true, but it wasn’t.”

Riley’s eyes fill with tears again. She pulls her hand from mine and hugs me.

I hold her close, running a hand down her back. “You’ve always been there for me more than anyone else in the world, Riley. You’ve loved me at my worst.”

She hugs me tight, then peels herself away from me. She looks up at me, her big eyes shimmering with tears she hasn’t shed yet. “Hunter, I don’t want to interrupt, but your pain is killing me. Can I just stop you here?”

I meet her gaze.

“I love you,” she tells me, almost desperate to end my suffering. “And you love me like… like I’ve never even dreamed of being loved.” Her blue eyes seem to brighten. Maybe it’s the tears or her belief that her next words will cure me of my sadness. “Hunter, I don’t want to break up.”

She looks up at me, anticipation written all over her lovely face. I know she’s waiting for my relief, my happiness, for me to grab her and squeeze her and give her one of many more kisses she’ll get from me.

Her brow furrows with confusion when none of that happens.

When I still look at her like she holds the answer to a question that hasn’t been asked yet.

“There’s more,” I tell her.

I don’t know how to say this next part. I don’t know how she’ll take it.

I don’t know how to explain I put her through pain she didn’t have to go through because I needed the answer to a fucking question. Because I needed reassurance that if I sunk everything into her, I’d never lose her, no matter what.

I roll my shoulders, trying to work out some of my growing tension.

I don’t know if she’ll understand.

Her voice tentative and filled with dread, she asks, “What… what do you mean, there’s more?”

I draw in a deep breath and let it out. I look into her eyes.

Then I tell her, “I was never really with Valerie.”

Chapter Seventy

Riley

I stare at Hunter, uncomprehending.

“What?” I ask, scowling.

He looks tense. Worried.

I don’t understand what he’s doing.

“We were never really together,” he tells me.

His words don’t make sense. On the face of it, simple.

But I was there. I know what he’s saying is absolute, utter bullshit.

Shaking my head, I look away from him. “Why are you doing this? I just told you I forgive you. Why are you lying?”

Hunter grabs my hand, pulling my gaze back to his. “I’m not lying. I never slept with her. I never even kissed her. We were never together like that. When you came to my house that day, when you told me where your line was, of course I wasn’t going to fucking cross it, Riley. I’m not an idiot. I had too much invested in you to throw it all away on something that didn’t even matter, but you gave me an opportunity to see if we could’ve gotten through it if I had. I didn’t have to actually betray you with her, I just had to let you think I did.”

My mouth falls open. Horror blossoms in my chest.

This is starting to make more sense to me.

“You… you faked it.”

He nods, watching me warily. “It annoyed her, but it was never my heart she truly wanted. She wanted me as her boyfriend; she wanted the status, the bragging rights. She didn’t really want me. Yeah, she would’ve been thrilled if I liked her, but it didn’t matter if I didn’t, as long as she could pretend to herself and everyone else that she had me. I put in literally no effort to convince her I liked her. I was openly hostile more often than not, it just didn’t matter. When someone locks on to use you, you don’t have to treat them well. It’s like having a leach on your body, they’ll stay stuck to you as long as you let them.”

My mind is racing. My heart, too.

“I… But I saw you kiss her. When we were posing for homecoming court pictures. You two were in front of me. You kissed her neck like you kiss mine. I saw you do it.”

Hunter shakes his head. “No, you didn’t. You saw me lean in like I was, but… I didn’t kiss her, Riley. I just wanted to punish you a little bit in that moment. You’d just said something to Anderson I didn’t like, I don’t even remember what it was now. Something about being a couple. I wanted to twist the knife a little, but I was always careful. I did what I did because I needed to see if I could get out of it, but I always made sure I left myself an escape hatch in case I couldn’t. I never did anything I knew you couldn’t get past.” His gaze drops. A flicker of shame darkens his features. “Well, that night Sherlock kissed you… I fucked up. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”