He went still.
“Lynda…” he started, then stopped.
“I am not asking for forever,” I rushed on. “Just try. Just be honest with me.”
He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I cannot give you what you want.”
“You did not even ask what I want,” I whispered.
He finally met my eyes, pain flickering there.
“I am broken,” he said. “And I will break you too.”
“I am already here,” I replied. “Does that not count for something?”
He looked away.
And in that moment, I knew I had already lost him.
He became distant, full of excuses. Then he disappeared entirely. Months later, he contacted me only to say he had left town and was not ready for a relationship.
I refused to let him be the end of my story.
I worked. I rebuilt myself. I vowed never to be the girl from the trailer again. When I heard he had returned to our hometown, I knew fate had handed me one last chance, and I vowed not to let him slip through my fingers again.
Until now, everything I built had come crashing down.
*********************
I sat in my car across the street from my ex fiancée’s office, staring at the entrance as if it might give me answers. I told myself I was only there to talk. To be seen. To hope he had cooled down enough to look at me without anger. I would have done anything for us. Even start over as friends, if that was all he was willing to give.
Then the door flew open.
Bailey stormed out of the building, her face tight with fury. Ashton followed, his long strides closing the distance between them as he called after her. From across the road, I watched them argue openly, voices sharp, gestures wild. They looked likequarreling lovers who had forgotten the world existed around them.
Bailey whirled on him, threw something I could not hear, then marched toward her car. She drove off without a second glance, leaving Ashton standing there, hands clenched at his sides, anger written across his face.
My fingers ached before I realized how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel.
My heart bled at the sight of them together. And then it bled again. Because seeing them like this felt painfully familiar, just like high school. Just like before everything fell apart.
No matter how far I ran, no matter how much I built, I was always standing on the outside, watching them belong to each other.
Chapter 26
ASHTON
I ended up having dinner with my lawyer, Liam Cameron, who is also a close friend from college. What should have been a simple meal turned into an emotional reckoning. Bailey’s outburst earlier that afternoon still echoed in my head, her voice sharp with hurt before she stormed out of my building. The frustration had settled deep in my chest, heavy and suffocating.
I never planned to suggest marriage. The words had slipped out of me without warning, born from panic rather than logic. Panic at the thought of losing my son. Panic at the even worse possibility of losing Bailey for the second time. I wanted them both in my life, desperately. I just did not know how to hold on to them without breaking everything further.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to handle this, Ashton,” Liam said evenly. “Suggesting marriage out of the blue? You took the choice away from her.”
“She’s being unreasonable,” I snapped back. “She hid my son from me for eight years and now she has the nerve to make me feel like a visitor in his life.”
Liam leaned back in his chair, studying me the way he always did when he was about to say something I would not like. “You are both stubborn. You are both trapped in your emotions and your history. Right now, you see each other as enemies, not as partners.”
