Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

He whips his head toward me, pinning me with those wintry eyes that feel
particularly cold at the moment. “Because what you’re saying is bullshit.” The
word snaps in the air. Swearwords really do have more weight when a person
uses them rarely.
He stares at me, unblinking. “I was here with you. I’m the one who had half
an eye on you and caught you before you nearly cracked your head on the
concrete. I’m the one who knew what to do. I’m the one who wouldn’t let
anything come between you and me until I knew that you were okay and that
you were going to wake up.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “You missed the game.”
“Of course, I missed the game, Frankie!” He sits back and stares at me,
stunned. “How could you even—”
“I told you that’s the last thing I ever wanted!” I yell hoarsely. “I didn’t need
you here, Ren.”
He leans in, a breath away from me. “I needed to be here.”
“Exactly. This is your trip. And every time you choose my health problems
over your own life, it will be your trip, too. Then, when it builds up, when you
make these choices, time and again, you’ll resent me for it. If you didn’t act like
a lovesick idiot every time I got a cold—”
“Double. Lung. Pneumonia,” he growls, ripping off his ball cap and slapping
it onto the cart. “You were unconscious. Your oxygen saturation level was
terrifying. This isn’t a head cold, Francesca.”
“You shouldn’t have come.” I drag myself up higher in the bed, trying to get
some kind of ground over him. “You can’t choose me and my health shit over
your career and commitments. Eventually—”
Ren stands abruptly, sending the chair scraping cross the room. Planting his
hands on my hospital bed, he leans in, eyes locked on mine. “I will always
choose you. And I will never resent you for it. That’s what we agreed—that I
would demonstrate what I just said with my actions. But apparently even that’s
impossible to trust. I have to be an asshole who leaves his critically ill girlfriend
in the hospital to play a stupid hockey game to prove himself.
“Guess what, Frankie? I’m not that guy, and I never will be. If you can’t trust
me, after all that I’ve entrusted to you, showing you who I am and that I am a
man of my word, then that really fucking hurts.”
“You’re making this about you,” I counter. “You’re letting emotion cloud
your judgement. And this is how I will end up getting hurt. In the moment, you
didn’t want to feel guilty for not being with me. To avoid that, you stayed. But
every time you do that, it’ll feel a little bit less worth it. And every time, you will
blame me a little bit more. Even though I’m telling you I don’t need you here.”