Chapter 71
Lucas's POV
Her amber eyes—almost golden in the hallway's soft lighting—narrowed slightly. "That's none of your business."
"None of my—" I couldn't finish the sentence. My chest felt too tight. "Ellie, you're staying overnight in a hotel with some guy. Do you understand how that looks?"
"How it looks?" She stepped fully into the hallway now, letting her door close behind her. "Since when do you care about how things look for me?"
"Since always!" The words burst out of me. "I've known you for years. I know you, Ellie. This isn't like you. You don't make impulsive decisions. You don't just—just run off for the weekend with someone you barely know—"
"I barely know him?" Her voice had taken on a dangerous edge. "Is that what you think?"
"Yes! You only met him a couple months ago. You can't—" I gestured helplessly at her door, at the whole situation. "You're not this kind of person. You're careful. Responsible. You wouldn't compromise your reputation like this—"
"My reputation?" She actually laughed, though there was no humor in it. "You're seriously standing here lecturing me about my reputation?"
"I'm trying to protect you!" My voice was rising despite my efforts to control it. "I know what you're like. I know what matters to you. You hate situations that make people gossip. You value your privacy. You told me you get uncomfortable at big social events, that you prefer quiet environments—"
"Stop." The single word cut through my rambling like a knife. "Stop telling me what I'm like."
"But I do know—"
"You don't know anything about me, Lucas."
The certainty in her voice made me falter. "That's not true. I know you better than anyone. I know you don't like coffee because it makes you anxious. I know you prefer staying in to going out. I know you—"
"Do you?" She took a step toward me, and I found myself backing up instinctively. "Do you really know me? Or do you just know the version of me that I performed for you?"
My back hit the wall. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the fact that you never asked me what I actually wanted." Her eyes were blazing now. "You just assumed. You built this perfect image in your head of who Ellie Green should be, and I was stupid enough to try and live up to it."
"That's not—I was trying to take care of you—"
"By deciding what I should drink?" She pulled out her phone, scrolled for a second, then held up a photo. It showed her holding a Starbucks cup, the writing on the side clearly visible: Caramel Latte, Extra Pump, Extra Whip. "You want to know what I do every morning now, Lucas? I drink coffee. Sweet, sugary, delicious coffee. Because I love it. I've always loved it."
I stared at the phone, my mind refusing to process. "But you said—you told me caffeine made you nervous—"
"I never said that." Her voice was deadly quiet. "You ordered herbal tea for me and said caffeine was bad for the body. You always suggested we get 'something healthy' when we went out. So I went along with it because I thought that's what you wanted. That you were trying to take care of me."
"I was—"
"You were imposing your preferences on me and calling it care." She lowered the phone. "You thought I loved classical music, so you never asked if I wanted to listen to anything else. You thought I hated staying up late, so you always made me go back to my home by nine. You thought I didn't like your basketball friends, so you never invited me to team hangouts."
Each sentence was a hammer blow. I couldn't breathe.
"And when I said I wanted to try hip-hop dancing?" Her voice cracked, just slightly. "You told me 'that's not really your style.' Like you got to decide what my style was."
"I didn't mean—I thought I was helping you—"
"You were controlling me." The words hung in the air between us. "You built a fantasy girl in your head—someone who matched all your ideals of what a perfect girl should be—and you expected me to play that role. And I did, Lucas. For years, I twisted myself into whatever shape I thought you wanted, until I barely remembered who I actually was."
A door opened down the hall. Jackson stepped out of 409, his expression shifting from curious to alert as he took in the scene. "Is everything okay out here?"
"Fine," Ellie said, not taking her eyes off me. "We're just finishing up."
But I wasn't finished. I couldn't be. "So what, Jackson asks what you want and suddenly he's better than me? He's known you for weeks, Ellie. I've known you for—"
"He pays attention." Her voice was steel. "He notices what I actually like instead of telling me what I should like. He asks questions instead of making assumptions. He sees me, Lucas. The real me. Not some idealized version he constructed in his imagination."
"I never said you were doing anything wrong—"
"You didn't have to say it!" Her voice rose. "You just... you'd give me that look. That disappointed little frown when I didn't fit your mental picture. And I'd scramble to fix it, to be better, to be the Ellie you wanted. But I'm done with that now. I'm done shrinking myself to fit inside your fantasy."
The hallway seemed to tilt around me. Conall was howling, a sound of pure anguish.
"I thought—" My voice cracked. "I thought we understood each other. I thought I knew you."
She made an exasperated sound—something between a laugh and a sigh—and I could see her patience had completely run out. Her jaw tightened, her shoulders squared, and she turned sharply toward her door.
"Ellie, wait—"
"No." She didn't look back. "I'm done waiting for you to see me, Lucas. I'm done waiting for you to realize I'm a real person with my own thoughts and feelings and preferences. I'm just... done."
Her door clicked shut with a finality that felt like a physical blow.
Jackson was still standing in his doorway, watching me with an unreadable expression. "I think you should go," he said quietly.
I wanted to argue. Wanted to push past him and pound on Ellie's door and make her understand—make her understand what? That she was wrong? That I did know her?
But standing in that hallway, replaying her words in my mind, I couldn't find a single argument that held weight.
She's right, Conall whispered, the wolf's voice broken. We never asked. We never really saw her.
I turned and walked back to the elevator on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. The ride down was a blur. The lobby, the parking lot, climbing back into the Jeep where Mom was waiting with worried eyes—it all felt like it was happening to someone else.
"Lucas?" Mom's hand on my arm. "Honey, what happened?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't process. All I could do was replay the last ten minutes over and over, watching every certainty I'd held about Ellie—about us—crumble to dust.
I'd thought I knew her better than anyone.
I'd never been more wrong about anything in my life.