Maddox's POV

    "Why'd you do it, Maddox," she said, pulling me from my thoughts. She cut out all pleasantries and went straight to the point. "Did I suck in bed or something? And why her? A million fucking girls on the island and you had to sneak around with her? Someone who I thought was my best friend? What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you secretly hate me or something? Were you just looking for a way out? If that was the case, you should have just fucking broke up with me."

    It was killing me hearing talk about the way I made her feel. And it fucking destroyed me knowing that the girl I love, thinks I wanted nothing to do with her when, even still to the day, she's the only girl I ever wanted. "That's not what I was doing or what I wanted. At all."

    "Do you know what your infidelity did to me? How it made me feel about myself," she continued. "For the longest time it made me feel like there was something wrong with me. That I wasn't pretty enough, or smart enough, or just fucking good enough. For anyone or anything!" Tears started to stream down her eyes. "Why, Maddox? Why wasn't I good enough for you?"

    That right there launched a bullet in my fucking chest. I was speechless. What do you say when the person you love the most tells you something like that?

    Never did it cross my mind that my unfaithfulness made her feel that way about herself. Yeah, I knew she hated me. I knew she was hurt that I ruined the beautiful relationship the we shared. But never did I think it made her question her self worth.

    Damn, I'm such a fucking jackass.

    "Baby," I whispered to her without thinking.

    Immediately, she shot daggers at me with her eyes. "It's fucking Brooke to you."

    I put my hands up in surrender. "Sorry. Brooke." I carefully walked to her side of the table and squatted down on the ground next to her.

    For what felt like a long time, but was probably less than a minute or two, I stared up at her. Not saying a word. Not expecting her to either. Just admiring the beauty that I was starting to realize I was probably never going to get back.

    I had done so much damage. To her, especially. I ruined all of her friendships. I wrecked our relationship. I annihilated her self-confidence. I practically obliterated the love of my life. All because I was a drunk, weak, asshole. All in that order.

    "I am so fucking sorry," I pleaded with her. "So fucking sorry for cheating on you. For lying to you. For ruining your friendship with my sister and every other person you considered a friend. For hurting you so badly that you felt the need to leave your home and family just so you could go on with your life." My own tears started to flow down my face.

    "But there is nothing in this whole world that I will ever be more sorry for than making you think so little of yourself. You are such a beautiful, amazing human being, Brooke. Both inside and out. Anybody who knows you will attest to that. And let's not forget how everyone you meet just instantly loves you. I've seen it first hand. You're the purest thing that this Earth was ever blessed with."

    Brooke tilted her head up and slowly blinked up at the sky. It was something she did whenever she was trying to hold back her tears. Then, after about half a minute or so, she exhaled loudly. Bringing her gaze back down to me, she stared directly in my eyes. I can't even explain you how much I missed being able to look at her big, beautiful light brown eyes. They were even lighter than usual since the sun was hitting her head on.

    "I really need to know why you did it, Maddox."

    Roughly, I rubbed my hands over my face, silently groaning into them. I knew I needed to answer whatever questions she had, this one especially. That was the only way we could move forward. But I'm going to be honest as fuck, it's going to be extremely awkward and uncomfortable. For both of us, I'm sure.

    "I was drunk," I sighed. "Really fucking drunk. And really fucking stupid." I removed my hands from my face. "Then Angel was there. And we were just -- hanging out, you know."

    She sarcastically nodded her head at me. "I know that part. What I don't know is how "just hanging out" turned into getting a blow job. Because I've hung out with lots of people, lots of times. And never had those hang outs ended up with my mouth on a dick. Were you guys flirting? Did you dare her? Did she force you?" She rotated her wrist, causing her hand to make a circular motion as she talked. It was something she normally did when she was trying to get her point across.

    "We flirted, I guess," I shamefully admitted, causing her whole body to deflate before my eyes. "But it didn't start off that way." I needed to make that point very clear. "In the beginning, we were just talking. Casually. But then one thing led to another and we were downing drink after drink."

    She rolled her eyes at me. "Then she said, "All this drinking is making me really hungry." So you told her, "Here, have a taste of my dick. Who cares that I have a quote unquote beautiful, amazing girlfriend." Then she was like, "Okay. Unfaithful dick that belongs to someone else is my favorite flavor." I don't believe I'm saying this, but I missed her sass, too. "I hope she gave you the shittiest blow job you ever received. And I hope she accidentally used teeth just to emphasize that she gives shitty blow jobs to match both of your shitty personalities."

    I grinned at that. Normal people wouldn't have, given the situation we were in. But I know, Brooke. That was her way of both shading us but also cracking a joke. Although, I don't know if her being able to joke about the situation was a good thing or a bad thing for me. Maybe it was both.

    It was the shittiest blow job I ever got, though. But I knew better than to respond to Brooke's statement. Not because I gave a fuck about Angel or her BJ reputation. But because I knew admitting it, would only rub in Brooke's face more that it actually did happen.

    "How much times did you cheat on me throughout our whole relationship?"

    I flinched at her question. Just like the one before, I didn't want to answer it but it was something that I had to do.

    "Three."

    "The night of the party? When Maddie found out? And the day I found you guys," Brooke listed off. I nodded my head at her, once again shamefully. "Was there any other time? With any other girls?"

    "No," I shook my head. "Ever since we started dating, even now, you are the only girl who has been on my radar. As bad and stupid as this sounds, we guarantee wouldn't even having this conversation if Angel wasn't your best friend. That's the only reason I allowed her to hang out with me and my friend in the first place."

    Brooke acknowledged what I said with a slight tip of her head then turned her attention to the group of people behind me. I could see her train of thought go from one station to the next. Then, after a long while of her just staring off into the space, she finally spoke.

    "So what now?"

    "You tell me." Because I honestly didn't know. If I thought everything was all jumbled up in my head before we started talking, it's definitely worse right now.

    She looked back at me. "You're the one who came all this way with the intention of talking to me. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just to fill in all the blanks."

    At this point, there was only one more thing I needed to get off my chest. And that was to beg her to come back to me. I didn't want her to come back with me. To Hawai'i that is. It was obvious that she was thriving here. I just wanted her to agree to be mine again.

    "Yeah, you're right," I innocently shrugged. "I came here because I wanted to ask you to take me back. My life sucked since we broke up. I miss you so fucking much. I miss your good morning texts. Your "I love you" phone calls right before you went to bed. Your random house visits. I even missed the arguments I would get into with Maddie because I wanted her to give you back when guys went out. I miss everything. I feel like I've been living a whole different life this past year."

    I paused, trying to dig deep inside of me to determine what it really was I wanted to say to her. I thought about all my actions that led me to this moment, my whole motive for coming here, and the conversation the two of us just shared. The more I thought, the clearer everything started to become.

    I knew what I had to ask of her.

    My tears once again began to make its entrance and my voice began to quiver. Never in my life have I had to do anything harder than what I was about to do right now.

    "But now that I'm here and we had our talk and I can see what kind of life you have now," I went on. "I know that asking you for another chance is extremely fucking selfish. And I'm not going to do that." I looked at her dead in her eyes. "Even though it's going to kill me to do this, I'm going to let you walk away."

    She crossed her arms on the table in front of her and buried her face in them. Everything in me wanted to go over there and grab her, hold her, comfort her. Something. But I knew if I did, I wouldn't let her go. Both literally and figuratively.

    "I love you and I will always love you." Even though she couldn't see it, I hitched my thumb over my shoulder and pointed in the direction of her boyfriend. "And I hope he or whatever lucky asshole you decide to spend the rest of your life with, hands you the world on a fucking gold platter. Because you deserve it, Brooke. You fucking deserve everything in life."

    I brought my knees up, crossed my arms over them and hid my face just as she was doing. The sounds of her sniffling filled the air, causing my sniffling to ignite as well.

    I don't deserve her. I believe at one point I did. But not anymore.

    While I was in deep thought a few seconds ago, I thought of everything I've been going through these past couple of months. All my actions, what flowed through my head, even my wants and needs. And one thing I gathered from everything was, only I was benefiting. Not us. Not even just her. Me.

    I finally had a way to access her social media pages, and I did so, even though I knew she didn't want me seeing her stuff. I wanted her back, so I flew here, even with knowing she had her own little family that I honestly wanted her to drop for me. I didn't think about what was best for her at all or take into consideration what she would want. Even while having this conversation with her, all I kept saying was I, I, I.

    God, I am such a fucking asshole. That's not how you're supposed to treat the people you love.

    "I never would have agreed to take you back, you know," Brooke gently told me. Even though that was a hard pill to swallow, I nodded my head which was still enclosed in my arms. "But it's not because you betrayed me or because I probably would never have trusted you again." I slowly lifted my head to look at her. "It's because I'm in love with him." 

    Yeah, that was an even harder and bigger pill to swallow. Even though I just told her I wanted to let her go, I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't just break all over again hearing her say that she loves someone else.

    "And by him, you better be talking about me."

    Instantly, I looked over my shoulder to see her boyfriend standing proud and tall a few feet away from us with his arms crossed at his chest. Damn, I wonder if Brooke is aware that she has a thing for cocky, possessive assholes.

    Instantly, she smiled. And by smile, I mean it was a full on, huge, all teeth showing, radiant (and I promise I have never used that word in my life before) smile. Yeah, it was obvious she was all in with this guy. If I didn't see the tear streaks that were stained on her cheeks or hear her crying with my own ears a few minutes ago, I would've never known that it happened.

    "I'm guessing that means my ten minutes is up," she asked. 

    "It's been up. Like 15 minutes ago." Funny, it didn't seem like we've been talking that long. "But I saw you crying so I came over to find out what was going on and if I needed to kill this guy."

    I scoffed at him. "Yeah, right. I bet you're all talk, no action, Rich Boy."

    Brooke shot us both with her infamous death glare. Turning back to her boyfriend with a calmer look, she told him, "Give me a couple more minutes." I could practically feel his objection radiating off of his body, but she went on before he could. "Then you can drop me off at work and secretly check on our baby girl." 

   She had the most innocent face on, blinked her eyes at him a couple times, and spoke in an angelic voice. After thinking about it for a quick second, he nodded his head at her, shot me one more dirty look, and went back to the table he came from.

    Yeah, it was pretty fucking clear she had his ass wrapped around her finger.

    Knowing that our conversation was over, I stood up and dusted the grass off my shorts. I didn't really know how to end all of this. It literally felt like I was giving up an important part of me. But my goal in life was always to make her happy. 

    And this was the only way that would happen.

    Probably noticing I wasn't going to say something, she wrapped me in a nice, warm hug. Slowly, I wrapped my mines back around her. I got the sudden need to savor the feeling of having her in my arms because I knew this was going to be the last time I'd ever get to hold her.

    "Now that my mind isn't so clouded with hate, I can honestly say you're not a bad guy, Maddox. You just made a bad decision. Granted, you made it multiple times. But I still don't think that makes you bad guy." Pulling back a little so she could look at my in the eyes, she finished, "I hope you find somebody great, just like I did. Have a safe flight home."

    Then, just as quickly as I had her in my arms, she was gone. I watched as she walked to her friends, kissed each one on the cheek, then left with her boyfriend, snuggled closely in his side. Not once did she look back. 

    It was as if she was making her way into her new life while leaving the old one behind.