Page 47

I slid my hands around his neck and pulled him closer, kissing him harder, deeper, pulling his hair between my fingers. He made some small, deep sound that slid over my tongue—a grunt of approval, maybe; it set my soul on fire.

His tongue caressing mine; his teeth grazing my lips.

Our mouths pushed and pulled, and fought and danced, and nipped and soothed, and this kiss—this kiss—felt like the only thing I’d need for the rest of my life, and yet the single thing I couldn’t go on living without. I wanted more, and more, andmore.

And I was ready for more. I was ready to go as far as we could. All the way. Right then and there if he’d asked me to. I would’ve given him everything. Every piece of me. He could’ve taken every last broken one of them and never given them back, and I wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t care anymore.

But he pulled away abruptly. “Fuck.Fuck, fuck,fuck!” He slammed his hand against the wall beside me.

The look of regret on his face shattered my heart into so many pieces I wouldn’t have known where to begin putting them back together again.

So I shoved him, as hard as I could, and choked back my tears. “Don’t youeverfucking talk to me again,” I nearly screamed.

I hated him.In that moment,I truly fucking hated him.

Forty Before

I RUSHED DOWNthe hallway, tore through the restaurant, and pushed my way outside. I couldn’t help the tears that broke free as soon as I burst through those doors.

And it immediately hit me, what I had just done: Cheated. On Jaymes. Technically. Or not technically, but just flat-out, blatantly, and clearly cheated. It honestly hadn’t even been a thought in my mind when it was happening.

Why? Why am I such an idiot?

I shook my hands out and kept walking. I kept walking, and I had no plans to stop. I would walk all night if I had to, all the way across town.

Because I could still feel the whisper of Greyson’s lips on mine, could still feel the ghost of his fingertips pressing into my skin—on my waist, and my ribs, and my hips, and my thighs.

I rubbed my hand across my mouth, angrily wiping away the traces of himself he’d left behind. I swiped away at my tears, too, at the steady stream of them spilling down my face.

Why did I let this happen?

Why was I so desperate that I ignored the flashing red“Do Not Enter”sign plastered across his forehead time and time and time again?

Why did I want him so badly that I was willing to take any piece of him I could get, no matter how much it broke my heart?

Because that’s how I felt: Broken. Split wide open.

My mind was spinning, reeling. I couldn’t latch on to a single thought or emotion I was feeling; there were too many.

But every single one of them was cradled by a hurt I couldn’t ignore, no matter how badly I wanted to. It crept over my skin and reached inside my chest, seizing my breaths.

Was it so much to ask, that someone simply love me?

No ulterior motives, no hidden agendas, no secret list of all the reasons for why they shouldn’t. For someone to love me, not because they were high or lust-filled or guilty or trying to take advantage. But because they simply…loved me, for everything and all that I was. Every scared, and scarred, and hurting piece of me.

A new wave of tears rolled in, and I couldn’t stop them from falling. They were determined to spill, and spill, and spill and never let up. I could barely see two feet in front of me. I gave up and sat down on the curb, taking a deep, shuddering breath, squeezing my arms around my middle—my desperate attempt to suffocate the pain.

It wasn’t coming in waves anymore; I was drowning in it.

Greyson’s feet stepped into my blurry line of vision. I hid my face in my hands and shook even harder, crying even deeper than before.

It felt pathetic, this broken version of myself. But I guess that’s what I’d been hiding from all this time. The abandoned little girl inside of me who was crying for her dead mother, who was desperately waiting for someone to come and pick her up and hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. That the world was not as cruel, or as dark, or as damaged as it felt. That I was not broken, I’d just been through the wringer and was pieced back together a little differently.

Greyson sat down beside me, his arm bumping mine. “I’m so sorry,” he said—quiet, honest, full of remorse.

“Go away,” I barely managed to reply, squeezing my knees tighter.

“I can’t do that, Jess.” He took a deep breath and released it. “I have to make sure you’re okay. And I need to explain some things to you. I need you to understand that I never meant to hurt you, and I never meant to be such an asshole. I want to tell you everything—Ineedto tell you everything, if you’re willing to listen. If you’ll just hear me out…