I didn't want to be alone anymore.
But I'd just made sure I would be.
7
EMORY
Imade it inside Eunice's cabin before the control I’d been holding together since I left his porch finally slipped.
The door barely closed behind me before the sobs started. Ugly, heaving cries that shook my whole body. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, and let myself break.
I’d never cried like this over anyone before. Not openly. Not without stopping myself.
You’re a kid playing house.
His words echoed in my head, sharp and cruel, slicing through every soft, hopeful part of me. I'd given him everything—my body, my trust, pieces of myself I'd never shared with anyone—and he'd thrown it back in my face like it meant nothing.
LikeImeant nothing.
I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen and there was nothing left inside me but emptiness. My chest ached with every breath, shallow and uneven, like my body hadn’t caught up to what my heart already knew.
Go home.That was what he'd said. Like it was that simple. As if home were a place I could retreat to when things hurt. As if distance erased damage.
But I couldn't go home. I'd made a commitment to Eunice. Three weeks of house-sitting, and I was barely halfway through. She was counting on me to water her plants, check her mail, and keep an eye on the place. I couldn't just abandon that because the man I’d fallen for had broken my heart.
And my midterms. They were in a week. I'd come here specifically to study in peace, and I’d been too distracted by my neighbor to concentrate.
Stupid. So stupid. Falling this hard, this fast. Believing someone like Kai could want someone as sexually inexperienced as me.
I pulled myself off the floor and splashed cold water on my face. My reflection in the bathroom mirror looked like hell—red eyes, blotchy cheeks, hair a tangled mess—but I didn't care. I had a week left in this cabin whether I liked it or not. I'd just have to avoid him. Keep my head down, focus on studying, and pretend the last week had never happened.
Except I couldn't stop seeing his face.
Not the cold mask he'd worn when he told me to leave. The other face—the one underneath. The guilt carved into every line when he'd talked about Kevin. The pain in his eyes. The way he'd braced himself like he was expecting me to judge him. Like he'd been waiting for the blow his whole life and was surprised when it didn't come.
And then, when I'd tried to comfort him, when I'd told him it wasn't his fault—he'd shattered. Not into sadness, but into something harder. Something defensive. Something that looked a lot like fear. Not fear of me—but fear of himself.
I sank onto the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.
He'd been trying to hurt me. Deliberately. Choosing the words that would cut deepest, pushing every button he could find. And it had worked—God, it had worked—but now, with a little distance, I could see it for what it was.
He wasn't rejecting me because he didn't care.
He was rejecting me because he did.
I thought about the way he'd looked at me from the very first day. That intensity in his gaze when he'd watched me do yoga, when he'd fixed my hot water heater, when he'd shown up at my door again and again with flimsy excuses just to be near me. The way he'd kissed me at the overlook like he'd been holding back for years instead of days. The way he'd touched me in that ranger shed—reverent, desperate, like I was something precious he couldn't believe he was allowed to have.
That wasn't a man who thought I was a vacation fling. That was a man who knew exactly what I was to him and was terrified of it.
He'd pushed me away because he was scared. Scared of hurting me. Scared of failing me. Scared that if he let himself love me, something terrible would happen, and it would be his fault. Again.
So he'd done the only thing he knew how to do. He'd tried to drive me away before I could get close enough to be destroyed.
But here's the thing about being stuck next door to someone—I couldn’t actually run. And neither could he.
I stood up, my jaw set. He didn't get to make this choice for me. He didn't get to decide what I could handle, what I deserved, what I was strong enough to survive. That wasn't love. That wasn't protection. That was fear.
And fear wasn’t going to win. Not this time.
