Don't Say You're Sorry (Hawthorne University #2)

Here's Bethany Winters's "Don't Say You're Sorry." It's the second novel in her Hawthorne University series.

["I didn't know if I'd ever see him again.

Adam Kane. My best friend, stepbrother... and the guy I fell for when I was eighteen.

Three and a half years ago, Adam had a choice to make.

Spoiler alert—he didn't choose me.

He left me after our high school graduation and took my heart with him.

Now he's back, living with me and my teammates, and the real kicker? He wants to be friends again. Brothers. He wants things to go back to the way they were before. Before he broke me.

Before he broke us.

My happy-go-lucky facade is slipping, and the person I keep caged beneath the surface is starting to become visible through the cracks.

I shouldn't be allowing him back into my life. It's too risky. But I can't push him away. Consequences be damned, I find myself doing the opposite, unable to resist taking everything I've ever wanted.

I've waited long enough. Now that he's within reach, I'm not letting him get away a second time.

I'm making him mine again.

And I'll do whatever it takes to keep him."]

This book was almost as achingly beautiful and devastating as the first. Almost. But I still had heart palpitations and anxiety, and I still cried, a lot. It was still heartbreaking and horrible and unfair. It was still fate being kind, and fate (and people) being horrible. It was still filled with secrets and regrets. It was still filled with sorrow and loneliness. 

But when they finally put aside their mistakes and miseries, they (slowly and not all at once and not without more bumps in their way) found themselves back to happy. It was beautiful, watching them fall back in love, watching them get back to that place of ultimate friendship, watching them tell the world and it's hesitations to fuck off. 

Just like the first book, I knew this one would wreck me in the best of ways. It's something about second-chance romances with mutual-heartbreak and mutual-pining (while set in a dark-romance-esque light) that's just so hard to resist, even when you know you'll cry; I guess the sun-coming-out-through-the-clouds HEA is worth it.

We got some more brat-taming and HEA-gooey-ness from Xavi and Nate, but we also got some serious drama and mysteries from teh past from Carter and Axel...which we have to wait until the next book for.

Trigger Warnings: mentions of addiction, mentions of parental death, violence (between MCs), mentions of child abuse, and more.

#likeyouhateme #dontsayyouresorry #bethanywinters #hawthorneuniversity #hawthorneuniversityseries #books #queerbooks #queererotica #bodicerippers #bookstagram #bookphotography #ilovebooks