I step forward, thinking he’ll spin around.
He doesn’t.
He blows off the dust and flips through the crisp pages.
A lump lodges in my throat, and I clear it with a cough. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Rose is looking for you,” I lie. My breath cages as I wait for him to speak. It’s in this moment that I know how much I value our friendship. And how it’s not invulnerable like I hoped.
“If she was looking for me, she’d be here instead of you.” He shelves the book and chooses another. I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off. “I’m not in the mood to talk with you, Lo.”
I can’t hold back. “It was a joke, Connor,” I snap, on the defensive. “I didn’t mean it like you think I did.” Did I, though? I can’t exactly tell. Something black is crawling out of me. Slowly. Eking like tar.
He returns the hardback and rotates to face me, stuffing his hands in his pockets. I’m overly aware of how fragile I am in his presence. And I fucking hate it right now. He lets nothing cross his face. Nothing that makes me feel stronger and better.
I just feel like a fucking idiot. No. Screw this. “You can’t get upset over one fucking joke,” I sneer, pain in my voice. I wish it wasn’t there. So goddamn apparent. Part of me wants to forget about this. And just move on. The other part knows I brought it up for a reason.
“It’s not a joke to me,” he says flatly.
I let out a weak laugh. “Right.”
Connor looks incensed for once, his chest rising and falling heavily. His blue eyes narrowing at me.
“Am I poking the robot?” I ask him with a bitter, painful smile. “Do you feel something, huh?” I extend my arms. “I’m your fucking liability. You should’ve known this day was going to come.” And everything just explodes in my body. Words my father said. Why would Connor keep me around? To manipulate me? All so he could get closer to Rose? I have no clue, and it’s ripping through me. To think that I could’ve—
“I carried you in my arms,” he suddenly says, his eyes bloodshot. “That day you relapsed was the worst night of my life.” He points at the ground. “It’s not a joke to me.”
I have no memory of it—I blacked out. I choke out another laugh, only this one hurts a million times worse. “Great. I’m glad we have that worked out.” I have nothing else to say. Honestly, I’d like to down Maker’s Mark.
“Lo…” He attaches nothing else to my name. I can’t read his mind, so I turn around, expecting him to leave it at that. But as I head to the door, he runs after me.
Connor catches my arm and spins me around. “Lo, wait.” I’ve never seen his eyes this red before.
“I get it,” I tell him. He carried me while I was passed out, and he was freaked.
His hand drops off me, and he shakes his head. “No you don’t.”
A weight builds on my chest. And I have to ask. I can’t just guess anymore. “Am I a liability to you?” I clench my teeth hard, suppressing everything that threatens to overflow.
“Yes,” he says truthfully.
I nod a couple times, letting this fact sink in. “Have you manipulated me?”
He twists his watch on his wrist, his gaze falling to the ground in thought before flitting back to me. “I can tell what people need, and I—”
“Stop,” I choke out. I don’t want to hear him explain. That he pretended to be my friend. He used me. “All you have to say is yes or no.”
“It’s not that simple,” he tells me, a tremor in his usually brick-walled voice.
“It is!” I shout at him. I point at my chest. “You either fucking played me or you didn’t!”
“I love you,” he refutes, his gaze daggered on me.
It takes me aback. Because Connor has admitted to only loving himself. To then loving Rose. No one else. But I know this isn’t sexual or romantic. It’s the kind of love that I have for my brother. The kind that Rose has for her sisters.
He grimaces like the fact is hard for him to accept. “Lo, I don’t…love many people. But there is no manipulation in what I feel for you. The truth is, I gave you what I thought you needed, affection and praise, but I had no motives for it. I didn’t use you for anything.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he raises his hand quickly.
“Wait, let me finish.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “You’re my liability because I love you. The night you relapsed, I thought you were going to die.” He pauses. “…and that fact nearly crippled me. I couldn’t even drive, Lo.” He shakes his head like he doesn’t want to imagine that night. “I care about you, what happens to you, and it’s a weakness any way I look at it. Like your father once asked, what do I get out of it? I told him the truth. I get your friendship. That’s all I want.”