AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was breaking in two.
She slid down to the floor and drew up her knees, rested her forearms against them, and tried to keep the dizziness at bay. Eyes closed, she focused on her breathing. In. Out. In…and out.
He’d spent every night this week with her. She’d been at Ruger’s birthday party, and seen how happy he was when he received Wreck’s trading card. She’d made friends with his Crew, and had felt like a part of something big, and it had all started with how good he’d made her feel about herself.
And it was all a lie?
She felt so stupid. Stupid,stupidgirl, trusting someone again.
She didn’t know if she was angrier with him, or with herself. Her feelings were so big and wide and overwhelming. The phone was in her hand before she’d even registered that she’d stood up. It felt cold as she stared at his last text in the thread.
Can’t wait to see you.
She wanted to throw up. Stupid girl.
He’d been sleeping with that woman. Cheating on Timber. Was it cheating? They hadn’t defined their relationship, but surely it was cheating if a man told two women he loved them.
Do you have anything you want to tell me?Send.
A call from Wreck came through almost immediately, but she rejected the call and texted him,Messaging is fine.Send.
He didn’t deserve to hear the brokenness in her voice. He didn’t deserve to see how much damage he was causing her. She knew if she talked to him right now, she would lose her shit on him, and that’s not how she wanted to handle this.
I can’t read the tone of your text messages. Are you okay?
Do you have anything to tell me?she typed out again. Send.
Ummm, I got the bid on that big job in Saratoga. I’m the sole contractor for temporary fencing for a block of corporate buildings.
Try again.Send.
Another call from him came through, and anger sizzled through her. Stupid tears welled up in her eyes and then fell to her cheeks as she typed out a long, scathing essay about how wrong he’d done her. She was falling apart by the end of it, and her eyes were too blurry to see the send button, which was the only reason she took the few seconds she needed to pull out of her agony.
He didn’t deserve the essay. He wouldn’t care. He would pretend he cared, but he really didn’t. He was a pathological liar. He would lie to her and make her question her instincts. He would explain away what she knew to be true, because that’s what men did. Brandon had done it too.
She deleted that message word by word, and then typed out something much simpler.
I met Kendra today. You really are good at burning things.Send.
And then she blocked his number, because she didn’t want to see the excuses, and didn’t want to be lied to for a second longer.
She needed space.
Timber needed room to fall apart by herself, where she could figure out how she felt without some stupid boy filling her head with nonsense.
Numbness cloaked her as she convinced herself to turn it off until she could be alone. She grabbed her purse, shovedher phone deep into the darkness of it, locked her office up, and made her way out of the building and to her truck, parked in the back of the parking lot.
She made it all the way behind the wheel before tears blurred her vision again. She gripped the wheel and gasped at the pain in her chest, rested her head on the steering wheel, and wrapped her arms around her middle. She hated this. Hated him. Hated herself for loving someone who could do this to her. It felt so wrong.
He’d been so helpful in her finally letting her family go. He’d given her friends, and let her meet his mom, and he’d built this little community for her to land softly in, and now this?
All of that was gone in an instant.
She felt like she was losing everything all over again, except this time it was worse. There was no warning. There was no trying for years to sort things out, and being prepared for cutting ties. It was a brutal severing of a hopeful life. She wished she’d never met him. Wished she’d never fallen in love with the Fastlanders, wished she was never part of his life, wished she’d never felt love at all. None of it was worth this feeling of unmitigated loss.
She was alone with this grief, and it felt so colossal, like it would swallow her whole.
She leaned back and, desperate to anchor herself to this world, she connected a call to Sasha. She stared at the roof as the phone rang.
