Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
“I got you, Rae.”
I don’t dare open my eyes to meet his stare through the mirror. Instead, I turn in his arms, folding into his warmth as I take a moment to find my composure.
“It’s un-fucking-bearable, Rae. Tell me what I need to do to make this right. I can’t take it any longer. You belong with me, right here in my arms where we don’t need to pretend,” he tells me, his voice cracking in agony. “Tell me how to fix this.”
“You can’t,” I whisper, my bottom lip quivering with the threat of tears. “It’s not yours to fix.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it is. I’m the one who left. I’m the one who broke your heart. I’m the reason you’re in here unable to even look at me. Of course it’s my problem to fix.”
I shake my head, the tears flowing free. “It’s not. You left, and I know you were only doing what you felt was right. You wanted me to have a normal life, go to college, and get my degree just like I always said I wanted. And despite that,” I cry, barely able to hold myself together as I pull out of his arms and truly let him have it. “I have blamed you every day because it’s what was easy. Because it’s easy to tell myself that everything that happened was on you when it’s not. It’s my fault, Ezra. I knew something awful would happen if you left. I had this gut feeling, and I chose not to say anything. I chose to keep my mouth shut because I knew if I said something, you never would have gone, and I didn’t want to be responsible for you and Axel not getting everything you’d worked for.”
His hands run back through his long hair as he starts to pace the small bathroom. “What the fuck are you talking about, Rae? Is this about why you won’t go back home?” he demands, stopping his pacing to search my eyes. “Why are you so afraid to open up? It’s me, Rae. It’s you and me, and despite everything, you know you can tell me anything, and I’ll always be right here.”
My heart shatters. It’s too much, and I pull back again, the tears streaming down my cheeks. “I . . . I can’t,” I cry, breaking piece by piece.
“Rae—”
“No,” I cut him off, starting to panic, but he steps back into me, wrapping me in his arms and holding me to his chest. “Please. Don’t. It’s too much. I can’t . . . I . . . I can’t.”
“Okay,” he finally says as his hand roams up and down my back, holding me as though I were the most precious crystal as he desperately tries to calm me. “It’s okay. I won’t push it anymore.”
Relief surges through me, and I relax into his arms, knowing he’ll stay true to his word and wait for me to be ready. But that doesn’t change the fact that when the time comes to tell him about my horrendous past, it’s not just going to cripple me, it’ll cripple him too, and that’s not something I could do lightly.
“Thank you,” I tell him after the panic has seeped out of my bones. “I promise, when the time is right . . . When I’m ready, I’ll tell you all about it. But until then . . . just know that I’m sorry. I’ve held on to so much anger and hurt, and I don’t know how to move past it, but I’m trying. I don’t want to be this way anymore. I’m done being broken, and I know that if I just allow you to, you’ll make the pain go away.”
“It kills me seeing you hurting like this, Rae,” he tells me. “It was never supposed to be this way.”
“I know,” I say, snuggling into the safety of his warm chest. “But just know that being here with you and getting to see you every day, getting to touch you again . . . It’s helping so much more than you could ever know.”
He rests his chin against my head, and I listen as he lets out a heavy breath. “I never should have left you behind.”
Pulling out of his arms, I force a smile across my face, not wanting the rest of our night to go to shit. “Let’s not get caught up in the could have, would have, should haves. They’re only going to make everything worse.”
He nods, and just as he goes to reach for me, the door barges open and a strange woman looks at Ezra in horror, clearly not having expected to find a man in the ladies’ room. “Fuck,” Ezra mutters before glancing at the woman. “Sorry, I’ll give you your privacy.”