Throwing out accusations at Wally was only done to make herself feel better. She hadn’t expected him to actually agree with her.
The moment he started calling himself down, she was possessed with the age-old instinct to defend him. It did nothing for her pride, but she found herself quietly shaking her head in confusion. Just because Sulli had called Wally those things, she hadn’t actually meant them. Didn’t he know her anger burned bright and quick and never lasted long? Not when it came to him. Her hurt? Her hurt had a much longer shelf life, she’d admit to that, but it was hers to deal with on her own. She had learned that long ago, even before Beth had gone.
Her heart stopped momentarily at the pet name that slipped from his lips, wrapping itself around her ribcage and knocking her breathless. Would there ever come a day when Wally didn’t have that sort of effect on her? She doubted it, and that was just too devastating to dwell on right now.
“Wally, stop,” she mumbled pathetically.
She wasn’t sure if she could take it if he kept calling himself down like this. As much as she hated to, she couldn’t help but recall the night when Frankie had come home, frantic and furious, detailing Wally’s proclamation of love to her before she dragged his name through the mud, angry that he would ruin their friendship in such a way. Gigi had sympathised and Beth had worried, but Sulli had stood in the doorway, heartbroken and envious and completely baffled.
“Why don’t you love him back?” she had asked, then immediately flinched away from the absolute ire in Frankie’s face as her sister rounded on her.
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Sulli had lived more years loving Wally than not. In her weakest moments, there was nothing Wally could ask for that Sulli wouldn’t give him. If she didn’t love him so much, she would despise him for what he had turned her into, a simpering devotee who cried in front of him.
Wiping angrily at her tears, she shook her head.
“You chose to be a coward then,” she argued, fighting to keep hold of the last shreds of her dignity.
“And you were selfish,” she agreed, although she would never continue to call him stupid. After her sister, Wally was the smartest person she knew, their friendship built on a foundation of mutual interests and academia. It was no wonder Sulli could ever even come close to touching that.
Sniffing loudly, she swiped her fingertips underneath her eyelids again, catching more tears that frustratingly refused to stop. Trembling, she lifted her head to look at him, handsome as ever with his overgrown hair and piercing eyes. God, this was torture. It was always going to be torture.
“I wish I could hate you right now,” she said. “God, I’d give anything to actually, properly hate you, you know. But instead…” She shook her head wordlessly.
It took everything in her to choke the next words out, but if this was going to be the final nail in the coffin for her and Wally, then she might as well let them go out without anything left unsaid.
“You know I can never hate you and that’s the worst part. You know I would still be here waiting around for you, because you could ask me to do anything and I would. That’s the worst part. I would do…” Her fingers scrabbled uselessly for purchase on the pendant of her necklace and she held onto it. “I don’t hate you but I really, really hate what you’ve turned me into.”
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