This was the last loop, though.This time, he wouldn’t be coming back.
Tears pooled in her eyes.“We’re both too messed up and damaged.”
“Well, who isn’t?”
Roxie blinked.“What?”
It wasn’t the response she’d expected.
There was the tinkle of a ceramic cup on the other end of the line.“Please don’t take this the wrong way.You had a tough time of it, and my heart bleeds over that, but we were all affected by our past.Lexie is constantly trying to please others, and I’m terrified to step outside my comfort zone.We’re messed up, too.The split affected us all, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve love.”
Roxie went still.The verbal swat on the behind by her shy sister made the swirling thoughts in her head stop.
“You might have actually come out of it the best,” Maxie continued.“You’re so strong.You know what you want, and you go out and get it.”
Come out of it the best… For the best…
The words hit close to home, and Roxie’s fingers dug into the pillow.They’d all been affected by what had happened to them, but she wouldn’t have traded places with her sisters if they’d offered.
Her breaths came a bit more rapidly in her chest.Was that the reason she’d been the one left behind?Because she was the one who’d been able to take being scared and alone?The castoff?She was an identical triplet who’d been made a loner, but if one of them had to grow up in foster care, she was glad it was her.
Glad.
The insight was messed up, and it made her lightheaded.
Her sisters had needed their second families—and she’d needed Billy.
Oh, God.She rubbed a hand over her face, and her gaze landed on the boots on the floor in front of her.She still needed him.“What am I going to do?”
“Go find him.”
So much pain and frustration had filled that bedroom.“I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”
She’d never wanted to hurt him.
“I’d bet my flower shop that he doesn’t want to hurt you, either.”
It was for the best.Billy’s words stung, but had they been too close to the truth, too?
“Go after him, Roxie.That’s what you told me to do when I almost lost Zac.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Maxie let out an unladylike snort.“Since when would that stop you?”
Never.
“I have faith in you,” her sister insisted.“You can make things right.”
But he’d made it so damn clear he was done.
Roxie leaned her head back against the sofa.She couldn’t destroy her sweet sister’s belief in happily-ever-afters.“I’m glad you called, Maximum.”
“I love you, Rox.”
The tightness in Roxie’s throat nearly choked her.Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to let people in.“I love you, too.”
When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking.Those floating scraps of paper were coming together and the picture they formed was uncomfortably clear.
