Page 5 of Break My Heart

But the lack of trust in anything lasting twisted everything before I could stop it. It’s what happens when you’re taught early on that affection comes with conditions. The perpetual silence and dismissiveness I endured meant I wasn’t worthy.

I failed Christin. I failed us.

But despite the crucial decisions I have to make regularly in a race car, I choked. I couldn’t explain to her what happened.

Until Dario reacted, I was operating on autopilot. Before my brain had a chance to move into the right position, Christin eviscerated me. I couldn’t find the words to undo the damage I’d done. Instead, I was thrown out with her believing I found her unworthy.

Dragging a hand down my face, I brush away the moisture building under my eyes. I sweep the property like I’m searching for a reset button that doesn’t exist. I’ve driven at two hundred miles an hour with less panic than the idea of having lost Christin from my life. I am finally able to force the words out with only the trees to overhear. “I’m so sorry. Please let me explain why that happened.”

I wish I could go back inside to try to make her understand, but that’s no longer an option. What does matter is how she felt. And it’s going to take a hell of a lot for me to show her I didn’t mean what I said.

It might even mean telling her the truth about who I am.

The idea causes me to sway where I stand, unsteady as I contemplate opening up a wound I tried to forge shut a decade ago. Thinking about my past makes my heart pound and my vision blur. Still, despite how I was once treated, I owe her an explanation. “I was wrong. So wrong.”

In my heart, Christin will never fade away. She’s my personal race blur. She’s what causes my focus to compress and time to distort—not the machine I drive at outrageous speeds. Everything unnecessary drops away because being with her is better than anything else in the world.

But I understand why Christin took the steps to protect herself by throwing me out. “You don’t get to berate me in my own home and then stay here.”

She’s hurt. I did that to her. Me.

For a second, something reckless surges inside me. I want to throw my bag down and storm back in there. Fix it; fix us. Say something—anything—to make us right. But I stop myself because the only thing that matters is Christin’s feelings. “She’s not obligated to listen to my explanation. She doesn’t owe me a bloody thing.”

I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and continue down her driveway. Even as incremental as the distance really is, it forces me to acknowledge I lost her. This. Us. All because of a past that has its grip on me. By saying those words, I forced the outcome in my direction.

As I reach the lower gate, I understand something with brutal clarity. I didn’t just say the wrong thing. I destroyed everything.

I just threw away what could’ve been my one chance at love.

I don’t know how to begin to repair this.

3

LOCK-UP: TIRES STOP ROTATING UNDER BRAKING

Idon’t watch to make certain he leaves. I can’t. If I do, the careful facade of indifference I’ve been portraying will fracture. I’ll need Leo to stay, to answer the questions I had not asked. Not to mention the ones forming in my mind.

Why? Why was he so cruel?

I can’t believe he said those awful words. Meant them.

A lone tear slips down from the corner of my eye, which I brush away impatiently. To avoid a complete breakdown, I fly up the stairs, heading to the expansive master suite. I may be able to resist chasing after him, but my retreat is no longer the peaceful sanctuary it once was.

Before Leo took over a part of my heart, I guarded it so carefully as a result of having it broken before.

This home used to be filled to the brim with the love of generations of my mother’s family. Bringing Leo here wasn’t just looking for a new place to hook up. I was opening my heart to him in the only way I know how—by letting him into the parts of my life I guard zealously.

Now, as I hover in front of the large window my mother added when I was a child, I wonder if I’ll only associate this place with heartache. Because he told someone I wasn’t enough.

Words that are now part of my home’s history. They’re written on the walls that breathed love into my heart every time I came here. But like all places of importance, it absorbs feelings. Especially heartache. Now, I don’t know how I’ll never hear his voice.

At least, not any time soon.

Ever since my mother passed away when I was sixteen, I’ve escaped to her family home in Saratoga Springs, New York, because this is the place where I knew it was safe to let my guard down. Mama would bring me here while my father was traveling the world for his career if we didn’t go with him.

My fingers curl around the edge of the window frame as I watch him come to an abrupt stop. From my position, I see him hesitate as he tries to take another step down the long, winding driveway.

Like he doesn’t know how to leave.