But it feels like a part of me has been ripped out and tossed to the ground, trampled just like these hedges have been—hedges I nursed from seedlings.
Pane comes up behind me and grabs my shoulders. “Rowe, it’s going to be—”
“No, it’s not!”
I rise up and whirl around, facing him. The moist earth soaked through my pants, leaving my knees cold and wet. I smack away clumps of dirt that cling to my jeans, sending them flying across the yard.
“It’s not going to be okay, Pane! You’re going to fix my house, but thenyou leave. You’re going to fly off in your jet and leave me behind. You’re going to abandon all of us.” I’m flinging my arms around like a thirteen-year-old having the hissy fit to end all hissy fits. “And if this spa doesn’t work, if I don’t know how to manage it or, God forbid, I run it into the ground, then at least I have—orhad—these berries. I had them, and they were going to be mine. Something just for me, a way to survive. But now I don’t even have that. I don’t have anything. All I’ll have are a few kisses fromthePane Maddox. But kissing won’t save me, Pane. It won’t save anything. Not when my life is in ruins.”
Everything I’ve felt for the past few weeks word-vomits from my mouth. My fears, my worries, my angst—all of it ejects from me in that moment, and damn, but it feels good to finally say all of it, to tell him everything that I feel.
And guess what? I’m not done.
“And I like you, and I love kissing you, and I want there to be more, but there can’t be because you won’t be here in a few weeks, and I can’t endure being abandoned again. My heart can’t take it. I just ... even if I try tonotcare about it, I still do. It matters because—” I place my hands to my head. “I sound like such a crazy woman right now.” I dropmy hands back down. “If you think I’m nuts and want to return to the shamper, then I won’t blame you, because I even sound nuts to me.”
I exhale a super-shaky breath that starts all the way in my chest and staggers from my throat.
“But I just ... can’t do it ... I don’t have it in me to care about someone so much that my heart hurts, to experience that feeling of being boundless, limitless, because I’m high on the euphoria of someone else. I can’t live in that and be destroyed again. Not by you.”
Tears stream down my cheeks and chin, splashing onto my blouse. My eyes are so full of them that Pane’s a blurry mess. When I blink, even more tears splash onto my clothes.
He steps forward. His expression is completely unreadable. He’s going to run. I don’t blame him. I would run from me, too. I’m a mess—a broken, dirty mess.
He cups my face with his hands and swipes at the tears with his thumbs. When he speaks, his voice is a velvety rumble in his chest that makes my knees become rubber bands. “Are you done?”
“No. Yes. I think so. Maybe.” I exhale again, this time stronger. “Yes. I’m definitely done.”
“Good. Because I know what did this.”
That’s all he’s got to say? I just poured my heart out to him—well,vomitedit all out—and all he has to say isI know what did this?
Perhaps he’s trying to find a way to save my dignity.
It’s more than I would do for someone else who just made a gigantic fool of themselves and is crying with wet, sloppy knees.
Maybe I should cut my losses and pretend I never said any of what I did. Seems that’s what Pane’s doing. Okay, I shoulddefinitelycut my losses.
I shake out my arms, trying to get some of the blood back into them. It all went to my stupid mouth, apparently. “What did this?”
His jaw flexes. “Let me show you.”
