Lost King Piper Lennox (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

as he moves to the edge of his bed. My insistence that he lie still is useless. He’s determined to face me, no matter how painful it is.

“Stop,” I say, as soon as he touches my chin. “I don’t want you to do or say anything that—that might not be true tomorrow.”

“Would it make you feel better,” he says softly, thumb brushing a tear near my mouth, “if I told you it’s already tomorrow? Technically.”

I shut my eyes. Even the joke hurts. As relieved as I am to hear him make one, that little kite-tail of “technically” guts me. That’s how we ended up here.

“I don’t want you saying things you don’t mean, just because I’m crying, or because we’re exhausted...or because things tonight could’ve gone so much worse than they did.”

There’s a beat of silence. “What things would I say?”

“Like that you forgive me. Or that it isn’t my fault. I know it is.” My eyes open, but I stare at the brace on his wrist, not his eyes. I don’t want to find out the color yet. “I keep thinking about everything I should have done differently. If—if I’d dumped Callum sooner. If I’d done what I should have weeks ago, and gotten a restraining order—”

“You think a guy like Callum would pay attention to restraining orders?”

“—anything that could’ve kept it from going this far.” I turn my head, pulling away from his touch. “If I’d just never met you.”

He’s quiet again. The soft storm of the ER syncs to my heartbeat.

“Which time?” he asks.

I don’t answer. It doesn’t matter which time. I want to erase them both.

“You know...I could sit here and say a lot of stuff I should’ve done differently, too.” He sits back to lean on his hands, but winces, already forgetting the brace.

The way he just smiles the pain away kills me.

“Should’ve locked my fucking door, for one.”

My brain betrays me. The smallest laugh escapes.

“I should’ve thought to check for a camera, the night we....” He clears his throat. Even that pains him. I wish the bruises on his neck were in any other shape but Callum’s handprint. “Paige had done that to me before.”

“With who?”

“Herself. She kept trying to hook back up, and I kept turning her down. Found out later she planned on filming us, posting it, and claiming I did it.”

“Who the hell would put a sex tape of themselves out there just to take down someone else?” I ask, which is beyond stupid. Revenge, as I’ve learned firsthand, has a way of blocking out all logic. You’ll cross a lot of lines, just to get even.

“Paige, that’s who. She loved playing the victim. Plus, like I said, she was pissed I dumped her.” Theo coughs into his elbow, cringing so hard I almost call a nurse. He puts his hand on my arm and shakes his head, anchoring me in the chair until the coughing fit passes.

“I’d started changing,” he continues roughly, clearing his throat, “being nicer to the people who actually deserved it…and one day I realized that Paige was the worst bully I knew. She did it all with a smile.”

My eyebrows raise with bitter agreement. Girls like Vivi and Cate were awful, but at least I always saw the punches coming.

“The last time I turned her down, I found a camera. Same spot on my dad’s shelf, at a party just a few days before you and I met. When I confronted her, she played dumb. Said one of our friends must’ve put it there for their own hookup or something. And…I believed her.”

Gently, he reaches out and lifts my chin, so that my falling gaze will meet his eyes. I don’t let it.

“Point is, you’re not the only one who underestimates shitty exes.”

I try to find consolation in this, but can’t. His underestimation of Paige ruined my life, yeah—but my underestimation of Callum almost cost us both our lives entirely.

“Anyway,” he sighs, freeing my chin far too gently, “I guess that’s when she decided, if she couldn’t sue me and play victim, she could at least ruin my reputation. All she had to do was find another girl.” He pauses. “So she found you. And I’m so, so sorry for that, Ruby.”

Here it is, the apology I waited years for. The words I told myself I didn’t even want, when I needed them more than anything.

And I’m rejecting them.

“Don’t apologize.” I turn my muttering towards the tile. “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could’ve known she’d do that.”

“Just like there’s no way you could have known I didn’t do it.”

I look up. He’s grown serious, turning his hospital bracelet in the low light.

DURHAM, THEOBOLDT. I watch his name spin past, again and again, and think of the day he told it to me. It was one of a hundred chances I had to come clean.

I think of how much I miss saying his name—crying it when he brought me to heights I’d only fantasized about, and whispering it afterwards when he’d kiss me and put me back together.

Thinking it to myself endlessly on the drive home, marveling at how much sweeter it tasted on my tongue now than in all those years I imagined my revenge.

“You learned to trust me,” he says, “and you had no reason to. You still thought I filmed us; you clearly thought I was this rich, arrogant asshole—”

“Theo,” I start. He holds up his hand. I stop talking, but not because of that: I’ve finally looked him in the eyes.

They’re nothing but that cool, beautiful emerald green.

“Remember when you asked if that counted for anything? That all you knew me as was the