I didn’t want to look at him.
The moment the realization hit me, really hit me, my gaze dropped to the pavement so fast it felt like whiplash. The air around us suddenly felt too sharp, too tight, pressing at the edges of my lungs like it wanted to squeeze the truth out of me.
Taylor liked me.
God.
The words rang in my head like church bells, loud enough to drown out every other thought. Loud enough to make my stomach twist. Loud enough that I felt sick, not because it was awful, but because… because it was painfully, heartbreakingly unfair.
He liked me.
He liked me, and he’d been standing here this whole time trying to protect me from the one person I couldn’t stop wanting.
I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. Not after that smile, if you could even call it that. Not after wat
