Page 9 of Break My Heart

“Not in the ten years since I’ve been gone. I mean, why would they? If my presence meant nothing to them, my absence shouldn’t either.”

“You weren’t raised in a home. You were in a prison,” Dario snarls.

I shrug. “It’s all I knew.”

“It explains a lot.”

“Does it?”

“You were barely an adult when we met,” Dario reminds me.

“Old enough to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That I could disappear. After all, I wasn’t indispensable.” The words hang between us. “I learned—very early on—being invisible doesn’t protect you; it just gets you shat on. To be of value to people, you have to prove your worth, over and over.”

“This doesn’t explain why you hurt Christin.”

“With her…” I shake my head, struggling for words. “She was never about what I had to prove. She never made our time together about results or expectations or whether I was performing well enough to justify my place.”

The words come faster now as I finally unburden myself. “People—love—isn’t something I know how to handle. I can control the track. My performance. No one’s ever loved me just for being me.”

“That was why you spewed that garbage. Fear?”

“Yes.” The admission lands between us. “Being with her…it terrified me because what if she came to the same conclusion? That I’m not enough? That I never was worth her time?”

Dario stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “So, you self-sabotaged your relationship—whether knowingly or not.”

I look away. “She deserves better than someone who is bound to disappoint her the way I do everyone else.”

“So, you tore her down first.”

“Not intentionally,” I protest.

“You called her dismissible, Leo. Have you ever forgotten what that felt like?”

My chest tightens painfully. “No.”

“Congratulations. You spent the last decade trying not to be like your family and in one fell swoop became the people you ran from.” Dario steps closer, his voice intense. “You have to apologize. You don’t get to use your past as a justification to destroy someone else.”

The words hit harder than anything else he’s said. I recognize the disappointment emanating from Dario. My voice cracks when I choke out, “She recited everything I said. She was trying to control herself, but I know exactly what it did to her.”

“Yet, you still didn’t take it back.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t speak. I froze!”

I move to the window, staring out at the city as it blurs slightly at the edges. “She told me to leave. She was just…done.”

“Understandable, but bad.”

Pressing my hand flat against the glass, I try to ground myself. “I thought I was ready for what it meant to love her.”

Dario gives it to me straight. “You weren’t ready if you couldn’t give her all of yourself, Leo. And I bet she has no idea about any of your past.”