But he stays completely silent.
And I realize this is it. His decision has been made… and I’m not part of it.
God, why does this hurt so bad? Why did I have to fall so hard for him?
I knew better. And I still did it.
“You know that…just,deep in your gut feeling…” I whisper, flattening my palms against my sternum between my breasts, where that aching tightness is most acute “—that feeling that you justknowyou’re right? Andeverythinginside of you is screaming,beggingfor you to be wrong, but—” I curl my hands into fists, holding them tight against that ache in my chest, “—youknowyou’re not…?”
He stares at me, unmoving, unblinking. And the tears I’d been fighting for days slip down my cheeks. I let them. I don’t bother to swipe them away.
“I really,reallywanted to be wrong, Zach.You promisedyou were different. And I believed you,” I whisper, my voice cracking. Shrugging my shoulders, I breathe, “Turns out you’re just like the rest of them, huh?”
He remains resolutely silent. The only show of emotion is the anguish in his eyes. And something inside me cracks open wide.
Because even though this is killing him inside, too, at the end of the day, he either can’t or won’t choose me.
Turning, I cross the room I’d come to view as home one last time. At the door, I turn, meeting his gaze once more.
“I hope you know, I love those girls. I might not be a mom, and I know I’m not their mom… but if you’d given me a fair chance,Zach… you’d have seen that I’d fight like hell for them. And for you.”
Fifty-Five
Zach
I’ve never hated myself more than I do in this moment, watching the girl that I love with my entire fucking heart cross the yard, her shoulders shaking with her tears.
Tears that I caused. Hurt that I put in her heart after promising I wouldn’t be like every other guy. That I wouldn’t walk away.
I fucking hate myself.
Pulling the notecard out of my pocket, I turn it over again and again. Still not able to bring myself to open it and read what she’d written to me.
I already know I don’t deserve whatever she’d written. I don’t deserve whatever kind, beautiful words she’d left me with.
But, I’m also a selfish bastard, so I stuff the notecard back in my pocket. It is mine, after all. Maybe someday I’ll read it.
Someday, when the heartache that’s threatening to end me eases, just a little.
Fifty-Six
Louise
“Ijust… I don’t get it?” Willow mutters from where she’s sitting at the head of my bed.
Liv nods, sinking onto the edge of the bed.
I’m lying in the center of it, tucked in the fetal position. My head is pounding, my eyes feel like sandpaper, and still I haven’t stopped crying.
“He just… I’m so fucking confused,” Willow continues, her tone one of disbelief.
I’m still feeling that same confusion. None of it makes sense.
“How do you go from ‘Missing you’ and ‘Can’t wait to kiss you’, to blocked in such a short amount of time?” I whisper, like I haven’t asked the same question a dozen times already. I stilldon’t have an answer. “How was I so wrong you guys? How was I so stupid—”
“You did nothing wrong and you weren’t stupid,” Liv says gently, laying down to face me. She tucks my hair back away from my cheek. “I still think something happened at that court hearing.”
“But why wouldn’t he talk to me? If something happened, why did he push me away after promising he wouldn’t…”
