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Ugly Love Book Chapter 36 Free Read Online

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Full Read the Online Chapter 36 – MILES of the Ugly Love book PDF by Colleen Hoover for free.

Ugly Love book PDF by Colleen Hoover Chapter 36 Read Online – MILES

Present day

Her eyes finally find the courage to meet mine, but I try not to see her. When I look at her, it’s too much. Every time I’m with her, her eyes her mouth her voice and her smile find every vulnerable spot on me to breach. To seize. To conquer. Every time I’m around her, I have to fight it, so I try not to see her with anything other than my eyes this time.

She says she’s here to say goodbye, but that’s not why she’s here, and she knows it. She’s here because she fell in love with me, even though I told her not to. She’s here because she still has hope that I can love her back.

Tate, I want to love you so deeply it hurts. My voice trembles as I confess this desire, and I don’t even recognize it when I bid her farewell.

The lack of emotion behind my words could be misconstrued as hateful. A far cry from the apathy I’m attempting to convey and an even farther cry from the urge I have to beg her not to go.

She immediately looks down at her feet. I can tell my response just killed her, but I’ve given her enough false hope. Every time I ever allowed her in, it hurt her that much more when I had to push her away.

But it’s hard to feel bad for her because as much as she’s hurting, she doesn’t know the pain. She doesn’t know it like I know it. I maintain the pain’s existence, ensuring its profitability while I endure it.

She inhales and then looks back up at me with slightly redder, glossier eyes. “You deserve so much more than what you’re allowing yourself to have.” She stands on the tips of her toes and places her hands on my shoulders, then presses her lips to my cheek. “Goodbye, Miles.”

She turns and walks toward the elevator, just as Corbin steps out to meet her. She raises one of her hands to wipe away her tears, and I can’t help but watch as she walks away. As I stand there, feeling a mix of emotions, I eventually shut my door. Surprisingly, though, I don’t feel even the slightest ripple of relief over the fact that I was able to let her walk away.

Instead, I’m met with the only familiar sensation my heart is capable of feeling: pain.

“You’re a goddamn idiot,” Ian says from behind me. I turn around, and he’s sitting on the arm of the couch, staring at me. “Why are you not going after her right now?”

Because, Ian, I hate this feeling. I hate every feeling she evokes in me because it fills me with all the things, I’ve spent the last six years avoiding.

“Why would I do that?” I ask as I head toward my room. I pause with

the knock at my front door. I expel a frustrated breath before turning back to the door, not wanting to have to turn her away for a second time. I will, though. Even if I have to lay it out in terms that will hurt her even more, she needs to accept the fact that it’s over. I let it go too far. Hell, I never should have allowed it to even begin, with us knowing it would more than likely end this way.

I open the door but find Corbin in my line of sight rather than Tate.

I want to feel relieved by the fact that it’s him standing here rather than her, but the fuming look on his face makes it impossible to feel relieved.

Before I can react, his fist connects with my mouth, and I stumble backward toward the couch. Ian breaks my fall, and I steady myself before turning to face the door again.

“What the hell, Corbin?” Ian yells. He’s holding me back, assuming I want retaliation.

I don’t. I deserved that.

Corbin trades looks between the two of us, finally settling on me. He pulls his fist up to his chest and rubs it with his other hand. “We all know I should have done that a long time ago.” He grips the doorknob and pulls the door shut, disappearing back out into the hallway.

I shrug out of Ian’s grasp and bring my hand up to my lip. I pull my fingers back, and they’re tinged with blood.

“How about now?” Ian says, hopeful. “You gonna go after her now?” I glare at him before turning to stalk off to my bedroom.

Ian laughs loudly. It’s the kind of laugh that says, You’re a goddamn idiot. Only he already said that, so he’s kind of just repeating himself.

He follows me to my bedroom.

I’m not in the mood for this conversation. Good thing I know how to look at people without actually seeing them.

I take a seat on my bed, and he walks into my room and leans against the door. “I’m tired of this, Miles. Six fucking years I’ve watched this zombie walk around in your place.”

“I’m not a zombie,” I say flatly. “Zombies can’t fly.”

Ian rolls his eyes, obviously not in the mood for jokes. Good thing, because I’m not really in the mood to make them.

He continues to glare at me, so I pick up my phone and lie back on the bed to pretend he isn’t there.

“She’s the first thing to breathe life back into you since the night you drowned in that fucking lake.”

It’ll hurt him. If he doesn’t leave right this second, I’ll fucking hurt him.

“Get out.”

“No.”

I look at him. I see him. “Get the hell out, Ian.”

He walks to my desk, pulls out the chair, and sits in it. “Fuck you, Miles,” he says. “I’m not finished.”

“Get out!”

“No!”

I stopped fighting him. I get up and walk out myself.

He follows me. “Let me ask you one question,” he says, trailing me into the living room.

“And then you’ll get out?”

He nods. “And then I’ll get out.” “Fine.”

He regards me silently for a few moments.

I patiently wait for his question so he can leave before I hurt him. “What if someone told you they could erase that entire night from

your memory, but in doing so, they also have to erase every single good thing? All the moments with Rachel. Every word, every kiss, every I love you. Every moment you had with your son, no matter how brief. Upon first laying eyes on Rachel cradling him, you experienced a rush of emotions. Holding him for the very first time, your heart swelled with love and wonder. Listening to his first cries and observing his peaceful slumber were profound moments that etched themselves into your memory. All of it. Gone. Forever. If someone told you they could get rid of the ugly stuff, but you’d lose all the other stuff, too … would you do it?”

He thinks he’s asking me something I’ve never asked myself before. Does he think I don’t sit and wonder about this stuff every fucking day of my life?

“You didn’t say I had to answer your question. Instead, you just inquired if you could pose it. Now, you can leave.”

I’m the worst kind of person.

“You can’t answer it,” he says. “You can’t say yes.”

“I also can’t say no,” I tell him. “Congratulations, Ian. You stumped me. Good-bye.”

I begin to walk back to my room, but he says my name again. I stop put my hands on my hips and drop my head. Why won’t he stop with it, already? It’s been six damn years. He should know that night made me who I am now. He should know I’m not changing.

“If I had asked you that a few months ago, you would have said yes before the question even left my mouth,” he says. “Your answer has always been yes. You would have given up anything to not have to relive that night.”

I turn around, and he’s heading toward the door. He opens it, then pauses and faces me again. “If being with Tate for a few short months can make that pain bearable enough for you to answer with maybe, imagine what a lifetime with her could do for you.”

He closes the door. I close my eyes.

Something happens. Something inside me. It’s as if his words have created an avalanche out of the glacier surrounding my heart. I feel chunks of hardened ice break off and fall next to all the other pieces that have detached since the moment I met Tate.

•••

I step off the elevator and walk over to the empty chair next to Cap. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence with eye contact. He’s staring across the lobby toward the exit.

“You just let her go,” he says, not even attempting to hide the disappointment in his voice.

I don’t respond.

He pushes on the arms of his chair with his hands, repositioning himself. “Some people . . . they grow wiser as they grow older. Unfortunately, most people just grow older.” He turns to face me. “You’re one of the ones just been growing older because you are as stupid as you were the day you were born.”

Cap knows me well enough to know this is what had to happen. He’s known me all my life; having worked maintenance on my father’s apartment buildings since before I was born. Before that, he worked for my grandfather doing the same thing. This pretty much guarantees he knows more about me and my family than even I do. “It had to happen, Cap,” I say, excusing the fact that I let the only girl who has been able to reach me in more than six years just walk away.

“Had to happen, huh?” he grumbles.

As long as I’ve known him and as many nights as I’ve spent down here talking to him, he’s never once given me an opinion about the decisions I’ve made for myself. He knows the life I chose after Rachel. He spouts off tidbits of wisdom here and there but never his opinion. He’s listened to me vent about the situation with Tate for months, and he always sits quietly, patiently hearing me out, never giving me advice. That’s what I like about him.

I feel that’s all about to change.

“Before you give me a lecture, Cap,” I say, interrupting him before he has the chance to continue. “You know she’s better off.” I turn and face him. “You know she is.”

Cap chuckles, nodding his head. “That’s for damn sure.” I look at him disbelievingly. Did he just agree with me? “Are you saying I made the right choice?”

He’s quiet for a second before blowing out a quick breath. His expression contorts as if his thoughts aren’t something he necessarily wants to share. He relaxes into his chair and folds his arms loosely over his chest. “I told myself to never get involved in your problems, boy because for a man to give advice, he’d better know what the hell he’s talking’ about. And Lord knows in all my eighty years, I have never been through nothing like what you went through. I don’t know the first thing about what that was like or what that did to you. Just thinking ’bout that night makes my gut hurt, so I know you feel it in your gut, too. Your heart, your bones and your soul.”

I close my eyes, wishing I could close my ears instead. I don’t want to hear this.

“None of the people in your life knows what it feels like to be you. It wasn’t me who made that decision. Your father had no part in it either. As for those friends of yours, they were just as surprised. Tate, on the other hand, had a different perspective. There’s only one person who feels what you feel. Only one person who hurts like you hurts. Only one other parent to that baby boy who misses him the same way you do.”

My eyes are closed tightly now, and I’m doing all I can to respect his end of the conversation, but it’s taking all I have not to get up and walk away. He has no right to bring Rachel into this conversation.

“Miles,” he says quietly. There’s determination in his voice like he needs me to take him seriously. I always do. “You believe you took away that girl’s chance at happiness, and until you confront that past, you won’t ever move forward. You’re gonna be reliving that day every single day until the day you die unless you go see for your own eyes that she’s okay. Then maybe you’ll see that it’s okay for you to be happy, too.”

I lean forward and run my hands over my face, then rest my elbows on my knees and look down. I watch as a single tear falls from my eye and drops to the floor beneath my feet. “And what happens if she’s not okay?” I whisper.

Cap leans forward and clasps his hands between his knees. I turn and look at him, seeing tears in his eyes for the first time in the twenty-four years I’ve known him. “Then I guess nothing changes. You can keep on feeling like you don’t deserve a life for ruining hers. You can keep on avoiding everything that might make you feel again.” He leans in toward me and lowers his voice. “I know the thought of confronting your past terrifies you. It terrifies every man. But sometimes we don’t do it for ourselves. We do it for the people we love more than ourselves.”

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