Guilty Love

22| Love

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Love

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Chapter 22: Love (Ronan's POV)

I expected that question, I knew she would ask me that tonight, but it still caught me off guard. I stared at her for a minute before finding it within myself, to be honest with her. "Because I was selfish." 

She blinked slowly and went back to staring at the sky, listening to me. 

"You were right when we argued that night here. I hid the truth from you not just because I didn't want you to get hurt on top of everything you had going on. That was part of the reason, but it was also because..." I sighed, "Because I knew that if you had said just once that you didn't want me to leave, I probably wouldn't have been able to. If you told me you wanted me to stay with you, I probably would have stayed. But at the time, London, what I did never felt wrong. I chose myself because I wanted to make a career for myself. I wanted to be a son my parents could be proud of, a boyfriend that you could be proud of." 

She hummed softly in response. 

"When I first left, I knew you were upset. But I thought by the time of my first holiday, things would have calmed down, I could come visit and we'd talk things out and find a solution. But then I realized how much you probably hated me and I thought you'd never want to see me again. So I never visited. It was killing me; I hated being there without you. But I found ways to distract myself, I focused a lot on writing and working, I came up with the idea for Wicked Ruins and spent all my time planning out every little detail. I wanted to call you and I could have but I was scared of seeing you upset because of me. And when I first went to Boston, I even changed my number." 

"I know. I tried calling you all the time, but I figured you had changed it. I gave up after that. It just felt like you didn't want me anymore." 

"That wasn't true." 

"I know that now." 

I sighed, staring at her. 

"So, that was it really, huh? You wanted to leave but you thought you couldn't do it if I didn't want that? So you hid it until you couldn't hide it anymore and had to leave?" 

"Yeah," I mumbled. "And I never thought that you wouldn't support me, London. I just thought even if you did, I couldn't stand the thought of seeing that look on your face. Happy for me but with tears in your eyes at the thought of being alone. It would have ruined whatever time I had left with you. And I'm sorry for the way I did things. If I could redo them, you know I would. I love you, London." 

She didn't reply for a minute and when she did, it was another question. "What about girls?" 

"Huh?" 

"You were in college, making new friends, probably going to some parties at least. You didn't get another girlfriend?" 

"No. No girlfriend. But..." 

She turned to look at me. "You can say it." 

"There was one girl. Maya." I swallowed. "She was friends with Brandon and I shared a few classes with her. We weren't friends but we were friendly with each other. I didn't even look at another girl during my first two years in college. But I was constantly missing you. And then Brandon told me that she liked me. It was convenient."