Page 56 of A Summer Thing

“No!” Declan bursts out with. “Yes! I don’t fucking know! All I know is everyone leaves. Everyone fucking leaves, and I’m always the one being left behind. I’m tired of feeling left behind. Like I don’t matter.”

“Of course you matter, Declan.”

The light turns green, and she takes a step out into the street, but I reel her back.

With an arm snaked around her middle, I drag her into me, her back to my chest. “Please stop walking away from me. Talk to me. We’re not going to keep doing this shit where you shut me out. It isn’t us, and it isn’t you.”

“You think I don’t know that?!” She pushes herself out of my hold. “I know that!” she sobs, and steps into the street, not watching where the fuck she’s going.

A horn blares, tires screeching as a car swerves into the next lane over to miss Delcan.

I yank her back into my chest with force, breaking our fall against the asphalt.

The driver lays on their horn as they take off, and I throw my middle finger up at them as they pass. “Fuck you!” I shout in vain. Pushing up from the ground, I pull Declan with me. I scan her body from head to toe twice over. “Are you okay?” the words push from my mouth with an escaped breath.

She nods with a hiccup as heavy tears dive down her cheeks.

“Okay. Okay. Fuck. Okay,” I repeat, tugging the roots of my hair as I pace in front of her.

Brutal memories crash through my mind without warning, Declan almost getting fucking wailed by that car flickering through each and every one of them.

My rising frustration and anger grow stronger.

A violent storm raging through my veins, surging through my muscles, until I can no longer contain it.

“Fuck, Declan! You can’t just run out into streets like that, not paying any fucking attention to your surroundings!

I know you’re upset, but you just nearly got hit, and I can’t fucking—I can’t —I can’t fucking do that again.

” My voice cracks. Splits in half. Shatters the fuck apart.

“I’m sorry!” she cries, and she looks as shaken up as I feel. Tears trek down her face faster than before. “I keep messing up. Everything I do—every decision I make—I just keep fucking everything up, and I’m so done, Jude.”

I gather her in my arms and crush her against my chest. The same one Brenna gripped onto as she took her final breath, laying in the middle of an intersection much like this one, nothing but apology and regret bleeding through her tear-filled eyes.

I was minutes behind her. Minutes too late.

Some days I find myself wishing I had been a few minutes more so I wouldn’t have the haunting feel of her final moments forever marked on my skin.

I hold Declan tighter with the thought. Willing everything else to recede. The fucked-up memories, the fear gripping my throat tightly, the hollow cavern in my chest where my heart should be.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Declan keeps repeating, but I’m not sure if she’s saying the words to me, or herself. Her hands are two fists in her hair, pulling violently. “I keep fucking up,” she cries. “You have to let me go, because I’m clearly not strong enough to let you go.”

The fuck? I rear back. “I have no intention of letting you go.”

“You have to!”

“I love you, Declan!” I holler back at her.

My chest heaves, storm clouds bursting open within me and raining free, tears tracking down my own face now.

“I love you, goddammit. That hasn’t changed, and it never fucking will.

But this? This has to change. We can’t keep doing this shit.

You can’t keep pushing me away. You’re so lost in your own head that you won’t let me in. It fucking wrecks me . ”

She winces, hurt and guilt contorting her features in equal turns.

More tears flood free.

Both hers, and mine.

My intention was to be here for her tonight, console her, begin to repair whatever went wrong these past few months, but I’ve only made things worse. Everything feels fucking worse.

My head is spinning, and I don’t know where the fuck we’re going to land.

“Please,” I settle on. “Let me in.”

“Why?” she questions, but there’s a whole world of words she isn’t saying. A whole world of hurt she’s been keeping from me for months.

“Because I love you, Declan. Let me in.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Like hell I shouldn’t! Let me the fuck in!” Tears stream down my cheeks in rivulets, but I couldn’t care less. She can have every single one of them if it means we’re finally having this out. “I love you, baby. But we can’t fix this if you don’t let me in.”

She crumbles, breaking down as she falls to her knees.

I fall with her.

With her head in her hands, she cries harder than I’ve seen anyone cry before. I don’t know what the fuck to do other than secure her in my arms and hold her together as tightly as I can.

I hold her for a long damn time. Until her breaths grow steady, and eventually, she pulls away.

She raises her palms to my cheeks, framing my face like I usually do hers.

Her hands are soft, shaking. “I know you love me. And I love you. So fucking much,” her words break apart, washing away in a flood of renewed tears.

“But it doesn’t make what I’m saying any less true—you need to let me go.

I can see what I’m doing to you, and I know you feel it, too, and I’m just—I’m not— I’m not good for you .

Not right now. You deserve so much better. ”

“Fuck that, Little D.” My heart twists violently. “Of course you are. You’re always good for me.”

“No,” she shakes her head, quick, jerky movements that force the tears racing down her cheeks to fall from her face. “How the hell can I be good for you when I’m not even good for myself right now?” she cries.

I swallow thickly, my own tears not slowing for even a beat. Pure, unfiltered fear grips its hand around my windpipe—and fucking squeezes. I wrap my own hands around her wrists, her palms still at my cheeks, and hold onto her as if my life depends on it. “Declan, no,” I manage to choke out.

But a calm conviction settles over her features, and it’s that look that rips me apart more than anything.

“You deserve someone who puts you at the center of their view,” she says, “and right now, I think I need to be the center of mine. I don’t want to stand in your way any more than I already have been while I do that.

I don’t want to keep you from all the amazing things happening in your career—because that’s what they are, Jude—fucking amazing.

And you deserve every bit of it. You’re one of the best people I know—no, the best. And I refuse to keep bleeding my darkness onto you because of it. ”

Breaths are hard to come by. “What are you saying, Declan? Spell it out for me.” My gaze reaches into hers, begging her not to say what I’m certain she plans on saying next.

“I need some time. Space. A break from… us. I need to fix… me,” she says anyhow.

My heart splinters the fuck apart. Bleeding.

Broken. Obliterated to pieces. And even still, I get it.

I won’t stand in her way if it means she wants to get better.

I won’t be the one to keep her from seeking out the help she needs.

I wish like hell she would let me be here for her, support her, stand by her side while she does so, but I respect her enough to do what she’s asking.

To know herself well enough to know what she needs right now, even if it isn’t me.

“Yeah. Okay. Take all the time you need.” Seven words have never felt so hard to speak.

The fracturing sensation in my chest reaches its limit. Lungs shattered. Heart shattered. Everything left fucking shattered.