“Yeah, I don’t really want your love right now.”
Jared’s face collapses.
But he obeys me, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoes through my chest.
I sink back into the couch cushions, and Patches shifts from beside me to curl up on my lap.
I make myself think about the crash based on what Jared just told me. How I must have made the split-second decision towrench my wheel to the left, to head toward the cliff-top barrier rather than hit the car coming over the center line toward me.
I saved them from an accident. Emmy. Sophie. Jared.
And he never told me that.
The sobs come then, violent and unstoppable, while Patches purrs like she’s trying to hold my pieces together. But I’m already broken. I have been for over a year.
I just didn’t understand who actually broke me.
Chapter 14
I never thought I’d be pining for the day when I innocently thought Jared regarded me as a hideous monster and that’s why he didn’t want a proper relationship with me.
That was so much simpler than this.
Three days. It’s been three days since Jared left my apartment, and I’ve basically become a hermit who survives on cereal and self-pity. Patches has given up on me entirely, choosing to sleep on the kitchen counter rather than deal with my wallowing.
I’ve called in sick to work, which Aroha definitely doesn’t believe but is too professional to call me on. I can’t face the world right now. Can’t face anything that reminds me of the life I was building here, the life that Jared was the center of.
My apartment feels wrong without him in it. His favorite coffee mug is still on my counter. His hoodie is draped over my chair. The good coffee he bought me sits in the cupboard like an accusation.
I miss him with an ache that is worse than how I felt when I was recovering from my injuries.
I miss his laugh. I miss the way he hums when he cooks. I miss how he pretends Emmy’s tea parties are life-or-death situations. I miss the weight of his arm around me at night.
I hate that I miss him. Hate that even knowing the truth, my traitorous heart still wants him.
The knock on my door is sharp, aggressive. It’s not Jared’s knock.
“Go away,” I call from my cocoon of misery on the couch.
The knocking continues, louder now.
“I said go away!”
“Open the door, Felix.”
Sophie. Of course.
“Go away, Sophie.”
“No. Not until you hear me out.”
Shit, from what Jared’s told me about Sophie’s stubbornness and determination, I have no doubt she’ll set up camp in the hallway until I face her.
But that’s fine. I’ve got my own anger to counter any stubbornness right now.
I stomp to the door and wrench it open.
“What the fuck makes you think I want to see you? I don’t want to see your brother, and he’s capable of giving me great orgasms, so I sure as hell don’t want to see you.”
