Page 29 of The Jealous Girl

‘I wasn’t honest with you back then either.’

The evening air suddenly felt cooler and I hugged my arms around me. ‘About what?’ My words were forced. My voice strained. Even just asking the question physically hurt.

But I couldn’t not ask. Not now.

‘Staying here, skipping graduation – I wasn’t being as selfless as I made out. Not really.’

‘I don’t understand. You figured out I didn’t want to go back. That no one would be there for me even if I did. That’s why you suggested we stayed.’

Ryan ran a hand across his face. ‘I mean, it was part of the reason…’

I frowned. ‘And the other part?’

‘I think I was trying to run away from the life that waited for me back home. The stables. The responsibility. The expectations. It all felt too much.’

‘So you proposed to me to escape going home?’

Ryan’s head snapped up. ‘That’s not—’ He faltered.

The beach seemed to shift beneath me. That moment, that connection between us, had been everything to me. Something solid. Something to build on.

The first time I’d ever felt completely accepted. Wanted.

I curled my fingers in the sand, tightening my grip, but it just slipped away.

‘It wasn’t really about me. About us,’ I said quietly. It wasn’t a question. It was a realisation.

I shook my head slowly as I fought back the tears that threatened to fall. I pushed myself to my feet, keeping my face turned away from him. I couldn’t let him see me cry. I wouldn’t.

‘Kirsty.’ Ryan scrambled up after me, wincing as his ankle took his weight. ‘It wasn’t like that, I swear. I just…’ His words trailed into silence.

My chest tightened. I always heard the things people didn’t say.

‘No wonder we never worked. I thought you’d been choosing us. Choosing me. But you had just been choosing an escape.’

‘I loved you,’ Ryan said, reaching for my hand, but I jerked it away.

Our relationship had ended two years ago, but the truth still hurt as much as it would have done back then. Maybe more. Because, for all the ways it hadn’t worked, I’d always believed one thing. He’d loved me.

Now I knew he’d simply been using me.

I let out a shaky breath.

But then⁠—

I swallowed.

Hadn’t I done the same?

I’d manipulated him into coming to Malta in the first place because I hadn’t been brave enough to do it alone.

Maybe nothing about our relationship had ever really been honest.

Maybe none of it had been real.

I turned away from him and staggered to the water, allowing the tide to wash over my feet, not even bothering to kick off my flip-flops first.

Ryan grunted softly behind me as he moved closer. Part of me wanted to turn back, to tell him to rest his ankle, to protect him.