The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers Book 1)

AERIS

ME: We need to talk.

I’ve ghosted Hayes for the past four days, and that’s the best I could come up with. He opened the thread as soon as I sent the message to him, and he responded with a vague “Okay.”

I’ve paced back and forth outside of Hayes’ house for twenty minutes before finally getting the courage to knock on his door. I knew this conversation was coming, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult. The minute I see him, I want to reacquaint myself with his lips, even despite the sensible voice in my head telling me to stay far away.

He looks just as bad as I do. There are dark circles under his eyes, his hair is disheveled, and his clothes look slept in. He goes to open his mouth, but I don’t let him get a word in.

My stomach roils with nausea, and bile burns a canal up my throat. “Is it true, Hayes? Was this all started because you needed a fake relationship?”

Please don’t let it be true. Please.

“Aeris, please. Let me explain.” He reaches out to touch me, but my body rejects the thought, and I put a good amount of distance between us. I can’t believe I let him in. I can’t believe I let him have the most vulnerable parts of me.

Oh my God. I can’t even look at him right now.

He lied to me. Our whole relationship has been a lie. He’s been stringing me along, and I’ve been stupid enough to fall for every sweetened sentiment he’s told me. And he continued to lie to me, to disrespect me, after I told him I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.

My eyes spurn him, and my lips flare over my teeth. “You’ve had weeks to explain it to me. I’ve given you chance after chance to come clean, but you never did. And that speaks volumes about who you truly are.”

His expression is barren of the amicability I’ve grown to love. “I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter to me anymore! My feelings for you have been real since the night of our first date.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?”

“How can I prove it to you, Aeris? Please don’t shut me out.”

Indignation wages a war in my mind, forging my voice into a weapon. “I don’t need anything from you anymore. In fact, lose my number, and never contact me ever again,” I hiss, doing my best to ignore the feeling of my heart breaking in two.

The gray clouds hanging over our heads harshen, marked by the trickle of opal droplets onto the slate ground. Dread shrouds me, as does the hailing rain. My hair is soaked just after a few minutes of standing in the tenebrous storm. The trees begin to sway violently from the ruthless wind, so much so that pendulous branches threaten to break free. Thunder howls in the distance, and the periodic sparks of lightning feel too close for my liking.

“You’re not even going to give me a chance to explain?” he exclaims, not caring to wipe away the frigid water buffering down his face.

It feels like my chest has been skewered by a human-sized meat hook, baring all my bleeding parts for the entire universe to see. “No, Hayes. Because if I let you explain, I’ll want to forgive you, and what you’ve done is unforgivable.”

I turn to walk away, but he prohibits me from passing.

“I was a fucking idiot. I don’t expect you to forgive me. Hell, I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I’d kick myself if I didn’t try to fight for you—for us.” There’s no anger in his tone, and a part of me wishes he was flying off the handle right now. It’d make being mad at him a helluva lot easier.

“There shouldn’t have been an us, Hayes. This whole ‘relationship’ was built on some stupid ruse to better your reputation.” Red-hot rage cinches my heart like a thermocut wire.

I let my guard down, even after being hurt multiple times in the past. I knew better, yet I was so blinded by the possibility of a life I never thought I could have that it came back to bite me in the ass. And now I’m paying for it—every insufferable second.

And the worst part of it all? I had my doubts. I had my doubts, and I didn’t listen to them.

“Yes, in the beginning, I was looking for a fake relationship. No, I didn’t expect to fall in love with anyone. But I knew after our first date that I wanted to give this thing a chance. A real chance,” he yells over the rain, the torrential downpour sticking his hair to his forehead and soaking through his shirt.

“Why didn’t you tell me then? I would’ve understood.”

“I wanted to, but the guys said…”

There’s a lick of animosity in my eyes. “Oh, I know you’re not blaming this on your teammates,” I snarl.

A frown scurries onto his lips, and he shakes his head. “Shit. No. That came out wrong. I should’ve been honest with you. You didn’t deserve any of this. Please know that I’d take everything back in a heartbeat.”

My tears begin to fall steadily now, and it’s the first time Hayes doesn’t reach out to wipe them away. God, as much as I hate him right now, I can’t get the memories to stop charging through me. When we first danced together, when he said those things about my body, when he told me he loved me for the first time. I want the pain to go away. I want to forget everything.

I wish I’d never met Hayes Hollings that night at the bar. I wish I’d never fallen for him.

This is the moment that breaks me. It reduces me to a wailing mess, tears down the walls that have been standing guard over my emotions for twenty-three years, and takes my heart and flattens it to a barely beating organ.

“Aeris…”

“No, no, no. I can’t do this again. I can’t. You knew how Wilder treated me, how my father treated me. I’m not going to let someone ever treat me like that again. And that includes you.”

The bulging veins in his forearms arrow down toward clenched fists, and I can tell he wants to move toward me.

My voice is strangled with emotion. “My dad was right about you.”

Even though it came out barely above a whisper, it might have well been as loud as the thunder overhead.

“What did you just say?” he snaps, seconds away from unleashing the temper I know he’s been suppressing this entire time.

“My dad warned me about you. He told me about your relationship with Sienna and how you were only interested in saving your image. I didn’t listen to him, though, because I couldn’t possibly believe that you would be capable of something like that.”

“Wow. So I haven’t been the only one keeping secrets, yet I’m the one being punished?”

“Would you have wanted me to believe my dad? Would you have wanted me to bring it up to you?” I spit, a sick part of me knowing deep down that Hayes is right.

“You’re a hypocrite, Aeris. And being a hypocrite is worse than being a liar.”

The needle-sharp sting of his tone makes me rubber-kneed and teary-eyed, more so than I was before. He’s not arguing for the sake of winning—he’s stating a hard, cold fact. I’d hate myself if I wasn’t so mad at him.

“We’re done, Hayes,” I determine, nearly tripping over a curb as I back away from him.

I don’t know what I expected him to say, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t fight for me. He just…watches as I walk away, and that somehow hurts even more.