Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Hard to argue when I picked up on those unsettling vibes during dinner.
I spin toward my car, sliding on the icy pavement in my heels. He sticks to my side, ready to catch my fall but doesn’t touch me as I hurry to the driver’s side door.
“Even if that’s true…” I dig out my keys and unlock the car. “You had no right to step in.”
“You’re mine.” He crowds me against the door, the force of his breaths forming stony clouds between us. “I protect what’s mine.”
My heart skips. Oh, how I ache to be his.
But I’m not.
Regardless, I won’t let him or any other man make me feel like I can’t take care of myself.
“By storming in there and ruining my meeting, you basically told me you think I’m weak and incapable of surviving without your manly interference. You think so little of me you have to save me from a job interview, because my judgment’s so poor and my willpower’s so pathetic I don’t know how to walk away from a bad situation.”
“I don’t think any of that.” His face turns to granite. “You walked away from me.”
A sharp twinge cuts through my chest. “You don’t love me, Jarret. If you did, you would let me struggle, let me work through my trials, and step in only to guide me toward independence instead of insecurity.”
“I’m not built that way. I can’t bear to see you struggle, and you’re already so powerfully independent I could never take that away from you.” His eyes harden in the glow of the streetlight. “I love you so goddamn much I can’t function without you. I can’t sleep. I can’t work. I can’t fucking breathe when you’re four fucking hours away.”
I love him, too. More than he can possibly know.
I have to let him go.
If I had any doubts before tonight, I don’t now. We’re a combustible vortex of acid and corrosion, gunpowder and sparks. One lit match and we’ll go up in flames.
“Go home.” I open the car door.
He shoves it closed. “You’re going home with me.”
“No.” I advance on him and stab a finger against his chest. “We’re over. No more standing under my window, stalking me in the park, or lurking around my diner. Go home and do not come back.” I suck down the pain in my throat and turn back to the car. “If I see you again, I’ll slap you with a restraining order.”
“Threaten me all you want.” He clasps a yank of my hair and drags my face to his. “I will never let you go.”
“Stop.” The word falls from my lips and hangs between us.
His eyes widen, and his hand loosens but doesn’t release.
“Stop,” I say louder, firmer.
In the year and a half I’ve known him, I’ve never used that word.
The grip in my hair vanishes, and he lowers his arms, his chin, his voice. “You’ve always held all the power. You don’t even realize how much control you have.”
He cups the back of my head and touches his lips to my brow.
As he turns away, the barbed wire around us unravels and snaps. As he crosses the parking lot and steps onto the street, my throat burns, and my hands shake to reach for him.
I stand there long after he fades into the darkness.
I wait for him to return.
I wait for months.
This time, he’s gone for good.
Love hurts.
It’s an emotional abuser, insidious and manipulative, charming its way into unsuspecting hearts before beating the ever-loving shit out of the defenseless insides.
Love is as invisible as the wounds it inflicts and as lethal as a knife. When it’s taken away, all that remains is pain.
Unlearning that pain is impossible. It’s a road with no exit ramps or turnoffs. Once it carves its way through the soul, there’s no choice but to hold on and ride it to the dark, bitter, lonely end.
Love heals.
It’s a universal balm that repairs fractures, soothes pain, and stitches the heart into wholeness again.
Love is meant to buckle the strongest and fiercest person. It’s the very thing the soul cries for. To recoil from that is to reject the most powerful medicine, the greatest cure for loneliness.
With love, even the darkest season of guilt and betrayal can be defeated.
SIX MONTHS LATER…
Today is the same as every other day. I wake. I wait tables. I run in the park. I go home.
At night, I write boring fashion articles for a small print magazine in Dallas. It doesn’t pay much, but it utilizes my degree.
It keeps my mind occupied.
While my mundane routine hasn’t changed, today is a six-month milestone in a string of milestones marking Jarret-related changes in my life.
I met him six months after Rogan disappeared.
I lived with him for six months.
I didn’t see him for six months, until he appeared beneath my window.