Don't Mess with the Girl with Candy novel Chapter 1513

"I am not."

Lorelei's cheeks flushed as she gritted her teeth in denial.

"On your very first day of seventh grade, you couldn't find your classroom, so you hid by the restroom doors and cried."

"After P.E. class in eighth grade, you failed a math test and cried in the classroom."

"During the spring semester of eighth grade, you tripped during the track meet and cried while you kept running..."

"And..."

"How do you know all that?" Lorelei interrupted Harold, staring at him in disbelief.

Crying on the track field was one thing, but all those other times, she had always hidden herself away.

No one was supposed to have seen her.

"Because I've had my eyes on you since the day you started at that school," Harold said evenly. "From the time you were thirteen until now, I've always been watching you."

"So, you..."

Lorelei sat frozen in her chair, feeling as though a thousand-pound boulder was pressing down on her shoulders, stealing the breath from her lungs.

"I've loved you for fifteen years, Ms. Bellamy." Harold's Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke with heavy sincerity. "As for Felicia Bishop, she's merely a colleague. Outside of work, we have zero connection. She certainly isn't my 'first love.'"

"My true love, from the very beginning, has always been you."

Hearing him confess this again sent another violent tremor through Lorelei's heart.

It wasn't a fever dream?

She hadn't misheard him?

Harold had explicitly admitted that the person he loved was her?

"That accident was more of a miracle for me," Harold continued. "You have no idea how ecstatic I was the night we got married."

Lorelei parted her lips, unsure of where to even begin her questions.

She desperately wanted to know.

If Harold had always loved her, and was thrilled to marry her, why had he been so icy toward her after the wedding?

"Lori, I need you to confirm something for me right now." Harold lifted his gaze, a hint of panic flashing in his eyes as his voice dropped to a raw whisper. "Is the man you've loved all these years Joel Garner?"

How tragically pathetic.

"Lori, say something."

Seeing her stay silent, Harold's brows knitted tightly, an intense wave of frustration rising in his chest. "I need to know who my competition is."

"He..."

Lorelei bit her lower lip, and as she looked at him, her eyes instantly welled with tears.

If they had just asked each other earlier, if they had just been honest, would they have avoided wasting so many years?

The deeper she thought about it, the more her heart ached.

Seeing her cry made Harold's heart drop. He asked tentatively, "Lori, please don't tell me your true love is dead."

Competing with a living man was hard enough, let alone a ghost.

People online always said: The lethality of a dead first love was worse than a bullet.

He genuinely had no strategy against a dead man.