The Bennett Boys

CHAPTER 50

I hear footsteps behind me and I'm hoping that it's Raegan.

"Lily," the voice calls out, and my hopes go out the window. Because it's Lucas saying my name.

I don't know why he's trailing after me. I don't know what he expects after all that. For me to stop and listen to whatever bullshit he has to say? It's not going to happen.

I keep my gaze straight ahead, determined to get away from this beach. I'll go anywhere, so long as it's nowhere near Lucas.

"Lil, hold up," he says. He clutches onto the back of my arm but I jerk it away so fast that his touch doesn't have time to linger on my skin.

"Don't touch me," I shout, immediately turning around to face him. He looks disheveled. His usually tamed hair is not kept at all. His grayish-blue eyes are more gray than blue, like their beautiful color has been sucked out of them.

"Lil, I didn-"

"Save it. I don't care what you have to say. In fact, I don't care about anything that has to do with you."

I'm quick to turn around but he's just as quick.

"You don't mean that, Lil. You know that I didn't mean what I said back there. Just let me explain. Please."

I abruptly turn around, which gets him to stop in place. "Go ahead. Explain."

He licks his lips and swallows hard and my initial reaction is to reach out and touch his cheek. To give him warmth. How messed up is that? He's the one who's hurting me yet all I want to do is love him.

"You know how I feel about you, but we...we just can't be right now."

"No, Lucas. No. I thought that you," I laugh condescendingly, "I thought that you actually cared about me. But what you just did, what you just said, you don't do that if you truly care about someone, if you truly want to be with them."

"It's not that simple, Lil, and you know it."

"What's not simple about that, Lucas?"

"I can't let you love me – I can't let myself love you – knowing that there's someone else who loves you, too." He pauses, gulping. "And it's not just someone else. It's my brother, Lily. You were with my brother before me. You chose him before you chose me. What do you want me to do? Pretend like he doesn't want to be with you. I know that everyone thinks that I'm this selfish bastard, but I won't do that to my brother. I could never."

"Have you been paying attention to anything that's been going on, Lucas? Teddy and I aren't together. And he knows how I feel about you."

"Lil, I spent the day with Teddy, just the two of us. And we talked. We talked for 15 hours, and you want to know what? I almost wish we didn't. Because we spent half the time talking about you; how we both want you."

For weeks now, I've been imagining what Lucas wanting me would feel like. I had to imagine because I didn't think that it could ever be real. I convinced myself that if he ever did want me – like seriously, truly want me – there would be nothing else that I'd have to wish for. Him wanting me back would be enough.

But now, hearing him say that they both want me – Lucas and Teddy – makes me want none of it. Not even a piece. Lucas is right. I can't want him the way that I want to if Teddy's going to get hurt in the end. I can't do that to him. But then there's that part of me that yearns to be selfish. When you want something so badly, you've got to be, right? I mean, to an extent. My happiness matters, too.

I don't know how to respond to Lucas. So, the best I can do is say this:

"The last thing that I would ever want to do is hurt Teddy."

"Me, too," he whispers, then gulps. "That's why it has to be this way."

"This way?" I repeat, squinting my eyes. "You mean you treating me like absolute shit? I don't understand, Lucas, why are you trying to hate me so much?"

"Because..." He releases a deep breath, looking down at the ground before picking his head up at me. "...Because I thought that by hating you, I'd no longer love you."

"And how is that working out for you?"

He shakes his head. "It's not. It's harder to hate you than love you."

"Lucas," I sigh, "I can't keep doing this with you. The back and forth. It's too much. You've got to get out of my head."

"Then get out of my heart, Lil," he tells me, and I shake my head, refusing to take blame for his actions.

"You don't play fair, Lucas," I say, but he doesn't contest. He knows that I'm right, and yet, I've never wanted to be more wrong.