Chapter 34
Maggie
Abroken heart is slow. It takes its time to make sure every last bit of you is deconstructed to the point where you cannot fathom how you ever existed before that which made you love.
My mind and heart are an ever-revolving mirage of Hadley, every feeling he evoked from me, every memory I swore I’d cherish till my last breath.
Now, they burrow their way into my flesh like a rusty corkscrew.
Agony is too small a word to describe the total annihilation I’ve succumbed to. I’ve been locked away in my room for three days and nights. Still the pain is just as raw, just as incapacitating, as the moment I saw history was, in fact, repeating itself right before my eyes as I stood in the arena and Hadley was carted away on the stretcher. Again.
The one and only promise I made myself.
And I almost broke it.
Almost.
I managed to avoid the tragedy that tried to break my mother, yet I feel as if I’ve lost more. And the reasonMeredith Gallagher is currently pounding on my door. Chatter of removing it from its hinges slips under the gap at the bottom.
I haul myself from the bed, puffy-eyed and dehydrated within an inch of my life. When I reach the door, I open it, and a warm hug envelops me instantly.
“Oh sweetheart. We are so worried about you.” Her face drops into my hair. Brad stands behind her, emotion crossing his face before he has a chance to school it back.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’ll live.”
I’m unsure if I can say the same for Hadley. My cowboy who doesn’t know when to quit because he thinks he can’t.
Everything rides on his shoulders.
His family.
His ranch.
Nia’s education.
It’s too much for one man. Yet here I am, taking the coward’s way out. Running.
Just like?—
The thought is a slap to the face that makes me stumble backward out of Mom’s arms.
Oh my god, how did I not see it?
I left him like his father did. And he?—
Hadley’s words come flooding back in.
“It’s alright, Sunshine, I’ve got you. Go on and break my heart, baby.”
Of course he does, he’s got everyone. He’s the man holding the world up for his family. He’s the man who fixes what’s broken. Who makes ends meet or tries to so his family not only doesn’t need to worry, they also don’t go without.
He lives on fumes so they can have a good life.
I turn back and see the reflection of my ragged heartbeat scrawled over Mom’s face and hesitate.
“Tell me what’s happening, please. Is it Hadley?” Her gaze searches my face.
The second my face breaks under the emotion I’ve been volleying around for the last seventy-two hours, she breaks alongside me.
