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The door slams, and it echoes straight through my hollow chest.

The next girl who falls in love with you.

I sit there, staring through the windshield, breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.

She loves me.

That wasn’t anger or frustration or any other valid feeling she could be having right now. That was heartbreak. That was her loving me and having to watch me twist it into something meaningless, something small, because I’m too fucking broken to believe I deserve it.

“Goddammit!” I punch the wheel once, twice, just to feel something.

I love her more than life itself. More than breath, more than blood, and I looked her in the eye and insinuated that none of this meant anything. Like she didn’t.

What kind of man does that?

She stood there tonight, shining so bright. She gave a speech that had grown men wiping their eyes, and she looked at me like I was hers. Like I belonged beside her.

And I walked away. No—I shoved her away.

God. I hate myself.

I want to run after her. Pound on the door, fall at her feet, and say every right thing I didn’t say when I had the chance. Then my phone buzzes again, and suddenly I’m ten years old again, trying to clean up someone else’s mess while pretending I’m not drowning.

This isn’t her mess to deal with. Whitley deserves clean lines and open skies. I’m all cracked mirrors and storms. And I don’t know how to change that.

thirty-four

. . .

Whitley

Idon’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt.

The front door slams behind me, and I press my back to it, palms flat against the wood like I can keep from falling through the floor if I just hold myself up a second longer.

My stomach twists, and my heart is in my throat. That wasn’t a breakup. That was a gutting.

I close my eyes, fists clenching uselessly at my sides. Was I really so stupid? I have a hard time believing that, because it felt like more than a fling when he kissed me. When he traced the curve of my spine like he was trying to memorize it. When he looked at me across a room and made me feel like I was the only fucking thing holding his attention.

It felt real. Every second of it. And yeah, maybe we didn’t label it. Maybe we tiptoed around the words. But I know what love feels like.

He sat there with his jaw locked and his eyes full of ghosts, and he knew it, too. He just didn’t choose it. Every word that came out of his mouth was bullshit.

I press the heel of my palm to my chest, as if I can physically hold myself together. But I’m unraveling one thread at a time.

I feel sorry for the next girl who falls in love with you…

The words ring in my ears. I hadn’t planned to say them, and definitely not like that, but they came from the deepest, most broken place in me. And I meant every syllable.

I love him. God help me, I do. I love that gruff, guarded man. I love his quiet, steady loyalty and the way he makes me feel seen.

He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see what I see when I look at him. And I think the worst part is…I don’t know if I can make him.

I sink down onto the couch, dragging the blanket off the back of it and wrapping it around me for some semblance of protection. But there’s no protection from this. Not when love lands like a goddamn bomb and leaves you in the rubble.

I reach for my phone, fingers fumbling as I dial Violet’s number. She picks up after two rings.

“Hey!”