“No, it’s not. There are things about us that are different, but don’t try to make me out to be something other than what I am when I’m with you. Being with you is the only time I’m okay living in my own skin.”

“Why me?” There’s a taunt in her voice and she’s looking to pick an argument. “Did you get tired of girls who would give you whatever you wanted and decided to go for the chase?”

“Why are you pushing me so hard?”

“I’m not,” she says. But she is. She doesn’t like what I said to her about Matt.

“Last night you weren’t sure you wanted us. Now that I know something intimate about you are you going to do what you do best? Are you going to hole up in your head and run away?”

“You’re a jerk,” she spits out.

I throw out my arms. “I sure am, but at least I’m not playing dead. Are you fighting or are you running? Because this is on you. You can say whatever you want and you can push me as hard and as long as you want, but I’m not tapping out.”

Haley stands by my bed, unblinking and unmoving, and because I’ve already tossed it all on the table, I decide to give up the last of my pride. “And so you know, I’m a virgin, Haley. I’ve never had sex with any of those girls. You were never about the chase.”

Like I’ve announced I have eight ni**les, she clumsily sits back onto my bed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re the girl I’ve been waiting for. If you want to break up, then you’re going to have to do it because I won’t. You’re it for me, and I’m not walking away.”

Haley stares at the carpet. A sad song begins to play on the television. It’s the part in the movie where the couple breaks up. Eventually, they get back together. It’s what happens in movies, but as Haley has reminded me time and time again, this is real life. People lose their jobs, their homes... They lose each other and in real life, the pain actually hurts.

“I’m falling for you.” It was a whisper, barely audible. I heard it more with my heart than I did with my ears and it was the most beautiful sound. “I’m falling for you, but I don’t want to.”

She bends forward and her hair hides her face. I crouch in front of her and tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’m not Matt. Me and you, we aren’t a repeat of the past.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

She nods like she understands, but the truth doesn’t reflect in her eyes.

“I’m not Matt.”

“I know,” she whispers again.

“Then you say it.”

Haley twists her fingers into her hair and barely whispers, “You’re not Matt.”

“Then why do you keep comparing me to him?”

Chapter 57

Haley

West’s statement is like a front kick to the gut. “I don’t.”

“You have been the only person to see who I am. You’ve never looked at me as a Young. You’ve never looked at me as a free ride. You have always seen me—the good and the bad.”

West slides his fingers into my hair and rubs the strands between his thumb and forefinger before letting it fall back to my shoulder. “But whenever we’re close, I see Matt’s ghost in your eyes. When we fight, sometimes I don’t think it’s me you’re fighting against. I love you, Haley, but I’m not willing to share you, even with a memory.”

My eyes flash to his and I see the honest ache telling me how much speaking the truth costs him. West isn’t Matt. I know this. West and Matt could never be sorted into the same category. West: refined in his own bad boy way and smoldering blue eyes that whisper his secret thoughts, both the heartwarming emotional and the blush-inducing erotic.

But it’s more than that. The emotions growing inside me... It’s more than the warmth, the constant flutters, the excitement of meeting his gaze from across the room. It’s more than a crush. The longer I’m with West, the more I realize that’s exactly what it was between me and Matt. I crushed on Matt...hard...because if it was love, he wouldn’t have treated me like he did.

“Maybe we’re doing this backwards,” says West with a crazy gleam in his eye.

“How’s that?” Because this all feels rather hopeless.

“The only way to get rid of a ghost is to exorcize it.”

“Exorcize it?”

“Yeah.” West brushes his thumb against my knee and I watch the muscles in his arms ripple as he moves. “Fill you up with memories of me so there’s no room left for him.”

I wrap my arms around my waist, trying desperately to disappear. “What if it’s not the memories that frighten me?”

“Then what scares you?”

“What if I’m not terrified of you or him?” I swallow, unsure if I have the courage to say the words. “What if I’m terrified of me?”

His nonresponse confirms there’s no hope—none at all. Then my skin prickles with the light caress of fingers against my cheek. West urges me to lift my chin and it’s hard when the weight of his silence crashes on my shoulders.

“Then I’ll teach you how to fight the fear.”

“Teach me?”

“Teach you. First you’ve got to trust me.”

West’s fingers linger on my skin and I tilt my head toward the pleasing tickle. “I trust you.”

“Some,” he says. “But not all the way. When things get rough, you lock yourself in your head...resort to where you feel safest. Let me in, Haley. Let me bear some of your load.”

I know what he’s talking about...that smothering feeling when things grow too complicated. Those moments when I would have turned to my father or my brother, but then everything became lost and I had to learn how to depend on me. “How?”

“Start by talking to me.” West edges onto the bed near the pillows and offers me his hand. Tension thickens the air and I have to work harder to breathe. This is it; I either trust West or I don’t. I either tap out or fight.

My hand inches for his, a battle between falling and leaping. I’m choosing this—I’m choosing West. It’s like stepping out of a two-dimensional universe and walking into another when my fingers meet his and he draws me up along beside him. Colors seem richer, smells stronger. West snakes his thumb underneath my shirt and heat builds between our skin.

“Talk to me,” he says again. “Uncensored.”