Page 61 of Shattered

“Mark talks too much.”

“Mark is wise beyond his years.”

I opened her car door. “Get in before I decide we’re never leaving this parking lot.”

“Bold words from someone who just got kissed for the first time.”

“First time today,” I corrected. “I’m hoping for several more.”

“Greedy.”

“After being deprived for so long. I’m entitled to be greedy.”

She laughed as she slid into the passenger seat and I closed the door carefully. Walked around to the driver’s side while my brain tried to catch up with the fact that this was real. That Delia had kissed me. That she was choosing me.

That seventeen years of wanting had finally led somewhere other than disappointment.

I drove us toward Manhattan with her hand in mine, her thumb tracing patterns on my palm, and for the first time in three days the world had color again.

For the first time in seventeen years, the future looked like something other than careful distance and controlled longing.

It looked like a possibility.

And that was more terrifying than anything I’d faced before.

CHAPTER 14

Delia

I metJake at the coffee shop I’d chosen—somewhere neutral, though maybe part of me needed the symmetry. Needed to close the circle properly.

He was already there when I arrived, sitting at a table by the window nursing an espresso that looked untouched. When he saw me, something in his face tried to rearrange itself into hope.

I sat across from him and watched that hope die.

“You’re ending this,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“Because of Axel.”

“Because of me.” I wrapped my hands around the coffee cup the waitress had brought without me ordering. Jake remembered how I took it. That should have meant something. It didn’t. “Because I’m finally figuring out what I actually want instead of what I thought I should want.”

“And what do you want?”

“Not this.” I gestured between us. “Not us trying again because you’re sorry and I’m scared of being alone.”

Jake’s jaw worked. “Is that really all we were? You being scared?”

“No. We were real. For some time.” I looked at him directly. “But I loved being important to you more than I loved you. And that’s not enough to build a life on.”

“So it is because of Axel.”

“It’s both. I finally understood the difference between wanting to feel important and being seen without expectations.”

“How long?” His voice had an edge now. Hurt bleeding through. “How long has this been happening?”

“It’s been building for weeks. But I only admitted it to myself a few days ago.”