Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

clench my shaking hands into fists. “The truth,” I tell him, “is that I never know what to think of you! Your actions, your behavior—you’re never consistent! You’re horrible to me and then you’re kind to me and you tell me you love me and then you hurt the ones I care most about!
    “And you’re a liar,” I snap, backing away from him. “You say you don’t care about what you do—you say you don’t care about other people and what you’ve done to them but I don’t believe it. I think you’re hiding. I think the real you is hiding underneath all of the destruction and I think you’re better than this life you’ve chosen for yourself. I think you can change. I think you could be different. And I feel sorry for you!”
    These words these stupid stupid words they won’t stop spilling from my mouth.
    “I’m sorry for your horrible childhood. I’m sorry you have such a miserable, worthless father and I’m sorry no one ever took a chance on you. I’m sorry for the terrible decisions you’ve made. I’m sorry that you feel trapped by them, that you think of yourself as a monster who can’t be changed. But most of all,” I tell him, “most of all I’m sorry that you have no mercy for yourself!”
    Warner flinches like I’ve slapped him in the face.
    The silence between us has slaughtered a thousand innocent seconds and when he finally speaks his voice is barely audible, raw with disbelief.
    “You pity me.”
    My breath catches. My resolve wavers.
    “You think I’m some kind of broken project you can repair.”
    “No—I didn’t—”
    “You have no idea what I’ve done!” His words are furious as he steps forward. “You have no idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve had to be a part of. You have no idea what I’m capable of or how much mercy I deserve. I know my own heart,” he snaps. “I know who I am. Don’t you dare pity me!”
    Oh my legs are definitely not working.
    “I thought you could love me for me ,” he says. “I thought you would be the one person in this godforsaken world who would accept me as I am! I thought you, of all people, would understand.” His face is right in front of mine when he says, “I was wrong. I was so horribly, horribly wrong.”
    He backs away. He grabs his shirt and he turns to leave and I should let him go, I should let him walk out the door and out of my life but I can’t, I catch his arm, I pull him back and I say, “Please—that’s not what I meant—”
    He spins around and he says, “I do not want your sympathy !”
    “I wasn’t trying to hurt you—”
    “The truth,” he says, “is a painful reminder of why I prefer to live among the lies.”
    I can’t stomach the look in his eyes, the wretched, awful pain he’s making no effort to conceal. I don’t know what to say to make this right. I don’t know how to take my words back.
    I know I don’t want him to leave.
    Not like this.
    He looks as if he might speak; he changes his mind. He takes a tight breath, presses his lips together as if to stop the words from escaping and I’m about to say something, I’m about to try again when he pulls in a shaky breath, when he says, “Good-bye, Juliette.”
    And I don’t know why it’s killing me, I can’t understand my sudden anxiety and I need to know, I have to say it, I have to ask the question that isn’t a question and I say “I won’t see you again.”
    I watch him struggle to find the words, I watch him turn to me and turn away and for one split second I see what’s happened, I see the difference in his eyes, the shine of emotion I never would’ve dreamed him capable of and I know, I understand why he won’t look at me and I can’t believe it. I want to fall to the floor as he fights himself, fights to speak, fights to swallow back the tremor in his voice when he says, “I certainly hope not.”
    And that’s it.
    He walks out.
    I’m split clean in half and he’s gone.
    He’s gone forever.

SIXTY-THREE
    Breakfast is an ordeal.
    Warner has disappeared and he’s left a trail of chaos in his wake.
    No one knows how he escaped, how he managed to get out of his room and find his way out of here and everyone is blaming Castle. Everyone is saying he was stupid to trust Warner, to give him a chance, to believe he might have changed.
    Angry is an insult to the level of aggression in here right now.
    But I’m not going to be the one to tell everyone that Warner was already out of his room last night. I’m not going