Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“I can’t. You’re not safe.”
“I’m perfectly safe, especially if they’re going after Aiden. He’s the one who did all this, and thanks to you, he’s going to be convicted. I get my life back. Yay, fucking great. It would have all been fine if you hadn’t decided to kiss me back on top of it. Nice. So classy. Aiden might have been an anus, but you are a complete ass.”
I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t understand how wrong it would be until this moment.
I didn’t mean to use our chemistry to gain anything. I just…it felt right. It was about connecting with a person, truly, on a level I’d never experienced before. How can I tell her what I feel when it’s too late? I can’t. She won’t believe me, and even if she did, it would only hurt her more.
I’m the guy who made her feel something, too.
I’m the guy she made feel.
I’m the one who protected her, let her cry, kept her safe, made her laugh, and laughed with her. I’m the guy who was here when she needed me to be here. I’m the one who shared her bed and saw all of her, more than nakedness. She stripped herself down to the core for me, and I still didn’t tell her the truth.
Somehow, I thought I could make all this right. That I’d find a way. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I’ve seen some messed up shit. But I’ve never felt like this, and it has never turned into messed up shit.
“Leave,” she hisses between gritted teeth. I can tell she’s barely holding it together.
I know that from today on, I’m always going to think about this woman. It’s going to crush me, thinking about her being happy, not because I want her to be sad, but because I know she’s going to eventually find someone else and live her life with them, and they’ll give her joy. They’ll make her laugh, and they’ll have her memories, her future, her past.
“Please,” she grinds out, and it kills me. She’s going to kill me with those eyes filling up with tears and her stubborn and utter determination that they will not fall. She’ll never cry for me or over me or with me again. I will never get to have another moment with her, another single one of her emotions.
Hanging my head, I head straight for the door.
I have a few things here, but it doesn’t matter if they get left behind. She can throw out the clothes and shoes. I’m careful with my tech and weapons, so they never go astray, and they’re on me at all times. I have everything I need tucked into my pockets. I’m leaving nothing behind.
How ironic is it that I have nothing I need, and I’m leaving everything behind?
“Sam?” I have the nerve to say her name at the door because I can’t stop myself. I need to. She spins around and slams her hand over her mouth. I know she’s holding in a sob. I watch her shoulders shake as I take in the slender, beautiful arch of her neck, her rigid spine, and the floral print of the dress she made herself.
I once thought it was silly and old-fashioned.
But now I think it’s beautiful.
“You’re going to be okay. I’m so proud of how strong you are. You’re a good woman,” I say.
She’s clearly not going to respond, so I show myself out the door. Before I shut it firmly behind me, I make sure it’s locked on the handle. And then I test it once just to make sure I’ve truly locked myself out.
I don’t wonder until later, much later, when I’m lying in my huge California king bed, where I’ve been lying for hours, unable to sleep, if Sam checked her cameras at the exact moment I turned around from her door. If she’ll check them in the future.
If I was careful enough to hide how my heart didn’t just feel strained and tattered but entirely broken.
Chapter sixteen
Sam
(I Mean, I Guess Maybe It’s Time)
There’s this term I once heard. Hiraeth. It’s from Wales, I think. I don’t like borrowing things from cultures and history that I haven’t studied extensively and don’t fully understand, but it has always stuck with me. Apparently, it’s translated as a kind of homesickness, but I think it’s one of those words that translates exceptionally poorly. It’s more of a concept. More of a sickness that invades a person rather than just mere homesickness. It’s something that gets so inside you, permeates so deeply into you, that you know it’s going to be a part of you forever. It’s all the worse knowing the very thing you’re pining for is a ghost. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a burning wish for the past, for something you can’t go back to. The term isn’t supposed to be applied to a person. It’s all about a place you can never revisit. A place that lives in your mind and soul. A place where your spirit is tied to.