Page 66 of I Choose You

I’d bitten my tongue and stayed quiet only because of Kaden and the way we’d been having fun.

But he couldn’t expect me to sit there and take it, right? There was no damn way I was going to subject myself to Kody’s bullshit throughout the whole dinner.

I wasn’t proud to run away—no, no running of any kind will happen in these stupid shoes—but I just had to get out of there. I needed space, and I didn’t care what fleeing made me look like.

“Brooke?”

Kaden’s soft voice reached me, and I exhaled long and hard. I wasn’t surprised he chased after me. I turned, not getting up, and tried to control a renewed flash of my temper. My face remained tense in a glare as he approached.

It wasn’t Kody. I knew that. They were identical but still different in slight ways. His resemblance to Kody was a trigger I had to struggle past.

“What an ass,” I seethed as he sat.

He sighed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, then sat back up.

I appreciated that he didn’t rush to an apology or deny the fact I spoke.

“But then again, who would remember me from high school?”

I faced forward, zoning out at the bushes that hadn’t lost all of their flower petals. I’d researched flowers and vines when I’d first thought about getting ink. I was no horticulture expert, but in the haze of anger, I couldn’t even give a shit to know what fragrant plants surrounded us in this nook.

“Who would remember me? I was the ugly duckling. I never spoke up. I never made waves, too scared that if I did, some punk would write rumors about me on the bathroom stalls and one of those girls would tell the football team I was hideous.”

I glanced at him, curious if he’d deny it. He didn’t. He only gazed at me with a quiet, patient seriousness as he heard me out. The way he was willing to listen encouraged me to vent. He was offering me a safe space to rant and react. I was so mad, I took the chance and let loose.

“I was overlooked. If I didn’t try to duck my head and go unnoticed, I worried who would be next in line to give me shit for something that wasn’t deemed cool enough.”

With each word that spewed out of my mouth, more and more came. It was word vomit at its worst. I no longer bothered caring about whatever I might have said when I drank too much that first time we met up. I was a happy drunk, and with the feeling of embarrassment after that night, it was likely I’d hit on him and was a sloppy, silly flirt. I could live with it.

But there was no stopping the deluge of rants that escaped me in a heated, rapid stream. I’d bottled up these feelings for so damn long. All these aggravations and grievances had accumulated and compounded inside me, but with Kaden listening so calmly and patiently, I was finally able to release it all.

I had a chance to bombard all my thoughts about the crap I’d put up with in high school, and boy, did I take it.

Fully explaining the deep, cutting misery of being overlooked and labeled as the ugly one would be an hour-long lecture. There was no simple, clean way to describe the lousy treatment I’d suffered through from so many of our peers back then. But I tried. I shared all my frustrations without a break.

My fire was spent. I’d vented as much as I could. Words jumbled together so quickly that I wasn’t sure I’d said anything coherent that could make sense to him. I didn’t yell. I didn’t shout. In the back of my mind, I knew better. Mr. Wagner and Margaux didn’t deserve to have their engagement party spoiled by my ranting diatribe in their lovely garden.

I expelled a long, hard breath. My shoulders slumped in the aftermath of exploding all those complaints.

Still, Kaden was there. He hadn’t tried to butt in and counter. He hadn’t left and gave up on me at my worst.

Once more, I blew out a deep breath. Then shook my head.

He put his hand on my thigh. At first, I wanted to lean into him. That simple touch grounded me. He’d proven that I wasn’t alone by staying and giving me the freedom to rant. His hand on my thigh offered more proof that he wasn’t abandoning me.

“I’m sorry.”

Those words? Closing my eyes, I committed it to memory. For so long, I’d daydreamed about hearing them from his lips. Now that they came, though, they seemed misplaced. Kody was the one who’d pulled a stupid stunt of pretending to not know me. Kaden hadn’t done a single thing wrong tonight.

“My brother can be an ass.”

“He is an ass.” I was in no mood for him to slide in a contradiction, like suggesting Kody had a good side beneath his shitty personality.

“We can both be asses,” he said instead.

True. But hearing Kaden admit that right now, after the way he’d doted on me all night as if I were his real date, it rang false. Everyone had a chance to be a jerk. That trait wasn’t unique to the Wagner twins. The world was full of assholes.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.