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Ugly Love Book Chapter 21 Free Read Online

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Full Read the Online Chapter 21 – TATE of the Ugly Love book PDF by Colleen Hoover for free.

Ugly Love book PDF by Colleen Hoover Chapter 21 Read Online – TATE

I know he realizes Corbin is gone, but given the way he left things on Thursday, I doubt he cares much. Although I half expected that he would eventually explain if I did something wrong or at least tell me what upset him so much, the last response I got from him was the slam of his bedroom door after he walked away.

It’s quite clear why he hasn’t been in a relationship for six years. If any other man ever treated me like he did, it would be the only time. I don’t put up with the things I’ve seen a lot of my friends put up with. However, I find myself continuing to make excuses for him as something could justify his actions last week.

I’m beginning to fear that maybe I’m not so tough after all. That fear is immediately confirmed with the skip of my heart as soon as I step off the elevator. There’s a note taped to my apartment door, so I rush to it and pull it down. It’s just a folded piece of paper without anything written on the outside of it. I open it: I need to run an errand. I’ll stop by at seven if you want to come with me. I read the note several times. It’s obviously from him, and it’s obviously for me, but the note reads so incredibly casual that for a second, I begin to doubt that Thursday even happened.

Despite his presence at the scene, he was aware of how that night concluded between us. It’s evident that he perceives my emotional turmoil, but his note doesn’t betray any inkling of it.

I enter my apartment, resisting the urge to unleash my anger by pounding on his door.

As I step inside, I release my belongings onto the floor and scrutinize his note once again, meticulously analyzing every aspect from his penmanship to his choice of words. In frustration, I crumple it in my hand and hurl it towards the kitchen, consumed by anger.

I’m pissed because I already know I’ll be going with him. I don’t know how not to.

•••

I have nothing against punctuality. Miles’ behavior tonight, however, is likely to irritate me.

As I approach the front door, I swing it open.

In the hallway, he stands, positioned a few feet apart, seemingly closer to his door than mine. When I open the door, his gaze starts at his feet, but he eventually lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Want to come?”

His voice invades me. Weakens me. Turns me into liquid again. I nod as I step out into the hall and close the door behind me. I lock it and turn around to face him. He nods his head toward the elevators, silently telling me he’ll follow behind me. I try to read the expression in his eyes, but I should know better.

I walk toward the elevator and press the down button.

He stands next to me, but neither of us speaks. It takes the elevator what seems like years to get to us. When it finally opens, we both breathe a quiet sigh of relief, but as soon as we’re inside and the doors close, neither of us can breathe again.

His gaze lingers on me, yet I avoid meeting his eyes.

But I won’t.

Overwhelmed by foolishness, tears threaten to spill once more. “I’m sorry.” His voice is weak, but it’s also surprisingly sincere. I don’t look at him. I don’t even respond.

He takes three steps across the elevator, and then he reaches down beside me and presses the emergency stop button. His finger lingers on the button as he watches me, but I keep my eyes down. My face is level with his chest, but my jaw is tense, and I won’t look up at him.

I won’t.

“‘Tate, I’m sorry,” he repeats. He’s still not touching me, but he’s invading again. He’s standing so close to me I can feel his breath and him and how much he really is sorry, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be forgiving him for. He never promised anything other than sex, and that’s exactly what he gave me.

Sex.

Nothing less and definitely nothing more.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “You didn’t deserve that.”

This time, he touches my chin, lifting my eyes to meet his. The feel of his: fingers on my face causes my jaw to grow even more tense. I’m doing everything I can to keep up my armor because I’m: finding it hard to: fight back my tears.

The same thing I saw in his eyes when he kissed me at his door Thursday night is back. Something unspoken that he wishes he could say, but the only words that come out of his mouth are his apologies.

He winces as though he’s experiencing actual physical pain, and he presses his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry.”

He presses his palms against the elevator wall and leans into me until our chests are touching. My arms are at my sides, and my eyes are closed, and as much as I feel like crying right now, I refuse to do it in front of him. I’m still not sure what he’s apologizing for specifically, but it doesn’t matter, because it sounds like he’s apologizing for everything. From the moment we decided to embark on this ill-fated journey. Despite his inability to share his past with me. Similarly, he remained tight-lipped about his future. The moment he barged into his bedroom and slammed the door, he sealed my fate.

One of his hands wraps around the side of my head, and he pulls me against him. His other hand drops to my back, and he squeezes me, pressing his cheek against the top of my head. “I don’t know what this is, Tate,” he confesses. “But I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

The apology in his voice is enough to make my arms want to hold him. I bring them up and grab the sleeves of his shirt, then press my face into his chest. We stand like this for several minutes, both of us completely lost. Completely new to this.

Completely confused.

He eventually releases me and hits the button to take us to the ground floor. I still haven’t spoken, because I’m not even sure what words to use in this situation. When the elevator doors open, he takes my hand in his and holds it all the way to his car. He opens my door and waits for me to climb inside, then closes it and walks around to his side.

I’ve never been inside his car before.

I’m surprised by the simplicity of it. I know Corbin makes a decent amount of money and usually likes to spend it on nice things.

This car is understated, just like Miles.

He exits the parking garage, and we drive in silence for several miles. I’m tired of the quiet and tired of the curiosity, so the first thing I say to him since he ruined me is, “Where are we going?”

It’s as if my voice makes the awkwardness completely disintegrate because he exhales like he’s relieved to hear it.

“To the airport,” he says. “Not for work, though. I go there sometimes to watch the planes take off.”

He reaches across the console and takes my hand in his. It’s comforting and scary all at once. His hands are warm, and it makes me want him to hold my entire body in them, but it scares me how much I want that.

It’s completely quiet again until we reach the airport. There are restricted-access signs, but he passes them like he knows exactly where he’s going. We finally pull into a parking lot overlooking the runway. Several jets are lined up, waiting to take off. He points to the left, and I look, just as one of the planes begins to accelerate. His car fills with the sound of the engines as it zooms past us. We both watch it make its ascent until the landing gear disappears and the plane is swallowed up by the night.

“You come here a lot?” I ask him while I continue to stare out my window.

He laughs, so naturally, I turn to face him.

“That sounded like a pickup line,” he says, smiling.

His smile makes me smile. His eyes drop to my mouth, and my smile makes his smile disappear.

“Yeah, I do,” he says as he looks out his window again to watch the next jet prepare for takeoff.

I realize in this moment that things aren’t the same between us. Something huge changed, and I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He brought me here because he wanted to talk.

I just don’t know what he wants to talk about.

“Miles,” I say, wanting him to look at me again. He doesn’t. “It’s not fun,” he says quietly. “This thing we’re doing.”

I don’t like that sentence. I want him to take it back because it feels like it’s cutting me. But he’s right. “I know,” I say.

“If we don’t stop now, it’ll just get worse.”

I don’t verbally agree with him this time. I know he’s right, but I don’t want to stop. The thought of not being with him again makes my stomach feel hollow. “That did I do to upset you so much?”

He cuts his eyes to mine, and I hardly recognize them from the ice built up behind them. “That was all me, Tate,” he says firmly. “Don’t think for a second that my issues are because of anything you do or don’t do.”

I find a slight amount of relief from his answer but still have no idea what went wrong with him. We keep our eyes locked, waiting for the other to fill the silence again.

I have no idea what he’s suffered through in the past, but it must have been pretty damn difficult if he can’t move on after six years.

“You act like it’s such a bad thing for us to like each other.” “Maybe it is,” he says.

I kind of want him to stop talking now, because everything he says is just causing me more pain and making me even more confused. “So, you brought me here to call it off?”

He sighs heavily. “I just wanted it to be fun, but I think you might have different expectations from mine. I don’t want to hurt you, and if we keep doing this…I will.” He looks out his window again.

I want to hit something, but instead, I run two frustrated hands down my face and fall back heavily against my seat. I’ve never met anyone who can say so little when they speak. He’s definitely perfected the art of evasiveness.

“You have to give me more than that, Miles. A simple explanation, maybe? What the hell happened to you?”

His jaw tightens as firmly as the grip he still has on his steering wheel. “I asked you to do two things for me. Don’t ask about my past, and never expect a future. You’re doing both.”

I nod. “Yes, Miles. You’re right. I am. Because I like you, and I know you like me, and when we’re together, it’s phenomenal, so that’s what normal people do. When they find someone, they’re compatible with, they open up to them. They let them in, eager to share their company. Wanting to be together, to forge connections that transcended mere acquaintance. But they would never engage in hurtful actions, leaving others feeling shattered and abandoned, as that would go against their principles.”

Nothing. He gives me nothing. No reaction whatsoever.

He faces forward and starts his car. “You were right,” he says. He puts the car in reverse and prepares to pull out of the parking lot. “It’s a good thing we weren’t friends first. Would have made this a lot harder.”

I turn away from him because I’m embarrassed at how angry his words are making me. I’m embarrassed it’s hurting me like it is, but everything with Miles hurts. It hurts because I know how good our good moments are, and I know how easily the bad moments would go away if he would just stop trying to fight this.

“‘Tate,” he says with remorse.

I want to rip his voice from his throat.

His hand meets my shoulder, and the car isn’t moving anymore. “Tate, I didn’t mean that.”

I push his hand away. “Don’t,” I say. “Either admit you want me for more than just sex or take me home.”

He’s quiet. Maybe he’s contemplating my ultimatum.

Admit it, Miles. Admit it. Please.

The car begins moving again.

•••

“What did you expect would happen?” Cap asks, handing me another tissue.

When Miles and I arrived back at the apartment complex, I couldn’t bear riding up that elevator with him, so I took a seat next to Cap and let him go up alone. Unlike the hard exterior I try to show Miles, I completely break down while spilling all the details to Cap, whether he cares to hear them or not.

I wipe my nose again and drop the tissue, adding it to the pile next to me on the floor. “I was being delusional,” I say, realizing that I had convinced myself I could handle it if he never wanted more. In hindsight, I guess I thought that if I let him take his time, he’d eventually come around.

Cap reaches around to a trash can at his side and places it between us so I have somewhere to toss my tissues. “If that boy can’t see what a good thing he could have with you, then he isn’t worth your time.”

I nod, agreeing with him. While I do have a lot more important things to do with my time, for some reason, I feel as if Miles can see what a good thing he has with me. It’s almost as though he wishes he could make this work between us, but there’s something bigger than him or me or us that’s holding him back. I just wish I knew what it was.

“Have I told you my favorite joke yet?” Cap asks.

I shake my head and grab another tissue from the box in his hands, relieved at the change in subject.

“Knock, knock,” he says.

I didn’t expect his favorite joke to be a knock-knock joke, but I play along. “”Who’s there?”

“Interrupting cow,” he says. “Interrupt-“

“MOO!” he yells loudly, cutting me off. I stare at him.

Then I laugh.

I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long damn time.

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