Three Broken Promises (One Week Girlfriend #3)(55)
Author: Monica Murphy

“Jen, I’m sorry,” he starts to say, but I hold up my hand, silencing him.

“Save it. You’ll never understand. No one would. I shouldn’t have to defend myself. I was all alone and no one could’ve saved me. I had nothing.” I start to leave the kitchen, ready to make my escape into my bedroom where I can have a good cry. And after I cry, I’ll start to pack.

No way can I stay here beyond one more night. This arrangement is over.

“You always had me. Always. I saved you,” he reminds me as I exit the room. Pausing, I keep my back to him, waiting for him to say more, which he does. “And I would’ve come in and saved you sooner if you’d called me. I’d do anything for you, Jen. Remember?”

“Can you forget what I’ve done?” I slowly turn to face him, scared of what I might find. But I’m facing a blank, expressionless mask.

He blinks once. Twice. The only physical reaction I can see. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully.

Whoever said the truth hurts was dead on. But it’s beyond hurting. It’s like a million knives carving into my chest, tearing my heart completely apart.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put it back together.

Chapter 21

Colin

It feels like I’m being taken to the gallows, ready to meet my maker. I’m facing him now, my head bent, my body shaking. He towers over me on a pedestal, his face in shadows.

“You disappointed me,” he says, his voice eerily familiar.

I can only offer a small nod, too frightened to speak. I’ve never been more scared in all my life. It’s one thing to know you won’t live forever. It’s quite another to face your mortality and know it’s over.

“You haven’t lived your life like I expected you to.” He pauses, his breathing heavy, the mood, the darkness that surrounds us, foreboding. “You failed so many people.”

“I know.” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. I feel like I’m seven years old again. Facing the facts that my dad doesn’t care about me and that my mom is bitter and angry all the time. That I have no one in my life who is pure and good, with the exception of Danny and Jenny.

I love them like they’re my own family. And I failed them both. I know who this mystery demon is referring to. I don’t need the reminder.

“Look at me,” the voice commands and I glance up, surprise rendering me completely still when he sheds his hood and reveals that it’s Danny who’s standing before me. “You let me down. Then you let my sister down.”

I was so scared, and all along it’s just been Danny standing there. Trying to intimidate me and make me feel bad. For the first time since I can remember, I’m angry. Furious that he’s trying to blame me for everything.

Is it really all my fault? Have I been wrong all this time, carrying the guilt around like a shackle around my neck, constantly weighing me down?

“You weren’t supposed to sign up for the Marines without me,” I point out to him indignantly. We were supposed to do it together. We’d planned it all out, set up a meeting time and everything.

Then my dad showed up, offering me the opportunity I knew would change my life. I’d been so excited to tell Danny, to include him in my good news. We could run the restaurant in Southern California together. Finally we would be able to leave that crap town, have all the women we could ever want, and find success.

Instead, I discovered that he went ahead and signed up without me. No way was I going now. He was furious with me. Disappointed that I wouldn’t go with him.

And then he went away and ended up dead.

“I did what I had to do,” he says solemnly, his expression hard. Completely unreadable. Though his features are the same, he looks nothing like my best friend. The friend I still miss terribly.

“So stop blaming me for your death,” I say, my voice rising.

“Stop blaming yourself,” he returns. Sighing heavily, his gaze narrows as he studies me, his eyes so dark they almost appear black. “It’s not your fault, what Jenny did.”

He called her Jenny. I feel like we’re teenagers again, taunting her with the nickname she one day out of the blue deemed childish and silly. We kept calling her Jenny for a solid year just to aggravate her, until their mother finally stepped in and asked us to stop.

So respecting her wishes, we did. I always missed calling her Jenny, though. It’s a sweet name, for a sweet girl. Who’d eventually grown up into a sweet and sexy woman.

A woman who sold her body and performed sexual acts for money.

Fuck. I can’t get over it.

“You need to get over it,” Danny says, as if he can reach inside my thoughts. “Sometimes, we’re put into situations we don’t know how to get out of. She didn’t know how to ask for help. She thought she was doing what was necessary to survive.”

“I don’t know if I can let it go,” I confess, hanging my head in shame. Who am I to judge? I’ve done many things I’m ashamed of. And Jen has never judged me for any of them.

“Do you love her?” Danny’s voice is fierce, and I glance up to see his expression is thunderous. He looks as if he wants to reach out and choke me.

I take a step back, stunned by his reaction, by his words. “I . . . yes. I do.” Fuck. The admission staggers me so much my knees threaten to buckle. Reaching out, I brace my hand on the wall, breathing deep, trying to calm my racing heart.

“Then fight for her. Tell her how you feel.”

“I can’t.” The words fall from my lips, broken and sad. I fall to my knees, unable to hold myself up any longer. “I want to but I can’t. I said things that hurt her. I might not be able to get past what she did.” Despair consumes me, blinds me. “I’ve ruined it between us.”

Danny kicks at my chest, forcing me to look up at him. I feel small. Powerless. While he’s so tall and commanding, standing over me, radiating power and strength.

But he’s dead, I remind myself. How can he be stronger than me when he’s been dead for nearly two years?

“You keep acting like this and you’ll ruin it,” he says, his voice like a hiss. “If you can’t let go of the past, let go of everything you’ve done and everything she’s done and focus on the here and now, then I can’t save you. She can’t save you either. You need to live for the present. You and her together.”

“I’m afraid she hates me.”