“Yeah, I’ve been a good teacher, right?” He broke his stillness, and threw and caught the ring. “Letting you see just a little of the dark side. Just enough to make you realize it’s something you want to stay far away from.”

“You aren’t on the dark side.” I rolled my eyes for him to see, just so he would think that I thought he was being melodramatic. “I like you the way you are. And I don’t regret any of it.”

“You’re doing that thing where you stick your chin up. I know what it means, Bren.” He took my hand and slid the ring back on. I had lost a few pounds being sick, so it was loose on my finger. “You’re trying to convince yourself of something when you know you’re full of crap.”

There was a light knock on my half open door. I sat up, expecting Mom, and saw Jake instead. My heart hammered.

“Hey, Bren.” His eyes were red-rimmed and darted nervously around the room, failing to focus on anything. He held a bouquet of flowers in his hand, pink and green and white. It was the brightest, freshest thing I had seen in days. “If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave.” He looked at Saxon and nodded. The two of them eyed each other warily, but it didn’t seem like there was any anger between them.

“I was just leaving.” Saxon got up.

“Don’t go.” I grabbed his wrist, and he looked down at my hand, then traced Jake’s posey ring with the tip of his index finger. The air in the room already crackled with tension.

He kissed my hand, leaned down, and said quietly enough that Jake couldn‘t hear, “The look on your face when he walks into the room? That’s love, Bren. I can’t compete with that no matter how many times I jerk you off in my car. I know why I worked for you. I’m glad it lasted while it did.” He kissed my cheek.

I grabbed his arm. I knew there was no way to make it right, but I felt the heavy lead of a guilty conscience on my shoulders. I hated that the way I acted brought Saxon pain. I wished I could take it all back. He was giving me a mocking look that tried to trick me into thinking he didn’t care. “You’re being a self-obsessed ass,” I hissed. “Stop being so melodramatic. Please stay.”

He kissed my cheek again, then turned and left.

And I was alone with Jake.

As much as it hurt when I saw the disappointment in Saxon’s eyes, I knew that every single thing he said was true. I did love Jake. I loved Jake Kelly, and if he was coming to tell me that there was a way for us to be together again, there wasn’t one fiber in my body that would be capable of resisting him.

I sat up straighter and tried to move the tray on my lap. I wasn’t necessarily looking for him to swoop in and help me, but I did want to see how he’d react and if things would still be cool between us.

He hurried over, grabbed the tray and lifted the whole heavy thing with an ease that reflected regular hard work. He put it down gently while I watched his muscles flex. He pointed to the chair uncertainly.

I nodded. “Sit down.” I reached over and ran my hands over the petals of the flowers, some of them already scattered lightly over my bedspread. “Are the flowers for me?”

He picked them up and placed them on my lap. “Of course.” He stared at them without really seeing them.

“Thank you.” I pulled them up to smell them.

“You’re welcome.” His voice was robotic. He sat and folded his hands awkwardly, seeming unsure what to do with them. “You were really sick,” he informed me, his voice shaky.

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, I had pneumonia, but there weren’t any complications or anything. I’m fine.” If he was here because he thought I was at death’s door, then I didn‘t want it. It would be like having someone love you because he was under a love spell; you could never trust a contrived love like that.

“You look really bad.” He hung his head.

“Thanks a lot, Jake,” I teased, trying to figure out exactly why he was back in my room and how long it could possibly last.

“You know what I mean.” He looked up at me, his gray eyes stark and wild, his face so angry, I dropped the bouquet in surprise. “I wasn’t even around. If something had happened…”

“That’s because we broke up,” I interrupted as if I was explaining some kind of complicated secret.

“Yeah, about that.” He very slowly took my hand and ran his thumb over the posey ring Saxon had slid on. “You wanted to tell me why. That day you came to see me at Zinga’s.”

“You didn’t want to hear.” I stared at my hand in his and my heart fluttered. “When I came and saw you, you told me to get lost.” I furrowed my brow. “Now you want to know?”

“I was so damn mad at you, Brenna.” He stroked my hand with quick, soft touches. “And I still am. Kind of. Then you had to go and almost die. Like Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility.”

I smiled at his obvious attempt to butter me up, even if he was claiming to be pissed at me. “Marianne Dashwood,” I corrected. “Kate Winslet just played her in the movie.”

“Whatever,” he said good-naturedly. It was a huge relief to hear Jake’s voice with all the sweetness I was used to. “Anyway, you didn’t come to school, then Saxon called and told me, and I was freaking out.”

What? “Saxon told you?” I asked. Why?

“I was really pissed to hear from him at first, but he explained everything.” Jake’s gray eyes were calm, like we both knew perfectly well what he was talking about and that it was all good.

“What did Saxon explain?” My voice sounded far away and tinny in my ears.

“How you were still into me from the beginning,” Jake said with a shrug. “How you regretted everything. How you would be glad to get back together with me.” He licked his lips nervously. “And I knew it was what I wanted. I didn’t want to date some random girl. I want you. It’s always been you, Brenna.”

There was that moment that was a little golden gift, and everything sane and rational in me screamed that I should scoop it up and accept what Jake was offering.

But something about this was off. There was something I just couldn’t get a handle on. My just-recovered brain muddled confusedly through the words Jake had just spoken. Not the final ones that were kind of melting my heart in the background; the earlier ones, where he wiped the slate clean so easily it made my stomach clench.

“Jake, why did you take Saxon at his word?” I pulled my hand free of his.

He sat up straighter, his now-empty hands resting on his lap. “Why would he lie?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“So what he told me wasn’t the truth?” Jake asked, confused and just at the edge of hurt again.

And I wanted to apply the emergency brakes again and stop this train wreck that I was about to create. But what was the point of going through all of this heartache if I was right back where I started at the end of it all?

“It was Saxon’s version of the truth,” I explained. “And it was part of a deal he made with me.”

“What kind of deal?” Jake demanded.

I didn’t like his tone. I knew I had hurt him, but part of the reason I did what I did was because I wanted to be able to care about Saxon on my own terms, without Jake’s anger. And maybe I’d taken it way too far, but I didn’t regret getting to know Saxon better. I felt stronger for having been with Saxon, even if being together as a couple wasn’t right for us in the end. “An exchange. He felt like he’d helped ruin our relationship, so he decided to help fix it. I told him I didn’t think it would work.”

Jake looked up at me, his eyes wide with realization. “But it did work, didn’t it?” he said slowly. “I was so happy to hear him say what I wanted to hear, I never really thought about whether it was true. Or just more lies.” His face hardened a little and he stood. “Sorry Bren, but I can’t hear any more lies from you.”

If I wasn’t recovering from pneumonia, I would have been on my feet and staring him down in a fury. As it was, I had to make do with sitting and waving my arms around like a deranged angry woman. “I never lied,” I said fiercely. “You say you want the truth, but it seems to be the only thing you don’t want to listen to!”