His teeth grazed my jaw, his hands all over me.
“God…” he groaned, pressing against me. “I hate that I want you this much. I’ve never felt this way before.”
“Me too.”
He kissed me back, and it was so deep, so intimate, I almost passed out. And then, he whispered in between kisses, “I love you.”
He said it like it hurt. Like he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out, even if he tried. My heart nearly stopped. We had passed the line. I wanted to say it back so badly it burned my throat.
But if I gave him that piece of me, he’d own me. I was so scared about what this meant.
I kissed him harder, trying to pour it all into that moment. I wanted him to hear in that kiss how much I loved him. Could he hear my thoughts? Because they were repeating it over and over:
I love you. I love you, too. I love you, Max.
My tongue twisted with his as I kissed him deeper, and he moaned into my mouth, but the longer I didn’t say it back, the slower his kissing got until he quickly pulled away, his hand on his chest as if his heart might fall out.
“I need a minute.”
I looked up at him, surprised by the hurt in his voice. It was so deep, it felt like my heart was breaking into a million pieces. I almost fell when I saw his eyes. They were wet with tears. He was crying. Because of me.
He walked off, leaving me wondering what the hell just happened. And the worst part?
I had become a villain in my own story.Amonster.An exact replica of the one I was running from.
17
MAX
Was this what a broken heart felt like?
Because I felt like I might throw up.
I didn’t go far after I left her. Just enough that I could breathe. I needed to think before responding to her.
Every time I was around her, I lost my mind. I went from flirty to devastated to angry to fucking obliterated in under five minutes.
I hadn’t meant to tell her I loved her. It just fell out of my mouth.
I was so fucking in love with her, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was the goddamn love of my life. Every time I closed my eyes, it was her. Her hair, her laugh, the curve of her mouth when she smiled, the fire in her eyes that made me want to break every rule I’d ever known. And she was killing me. She was playing a game with me.
Because she was hiding things. I could see it in her eyes, in the little hesitations, the way she measured her words. Every secret she kept, it hurt. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Even though I knew.
I had always known there was more. I just didn’t know how deep it went.
The puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place quickly. I felt bad because I was watching her struggle with her internal conflict. I knew she couldn’t tell me, but I was hoping that the fiery Mackenzie, the one who didn’t follow the rules, would break through, and she would ignore her orders.
But she didn’t. And I think that hurt the most, because she had always told me everything, except this.
It always started the same.
Around 2 or 3 a.m., I’d feel her shift restlessly beside me. A tremor would pulse through her legs. Her breath would catch, ragged and uneven. Sometimes she’d mumble incoherent fragments, other times she’d whisper desperately, “Don’t go, please don’t go.”
I’d glean pieces of her story she’d never spoken aloud, glimpses from her nightmares. Now, those fragments haunted my mind, drifting endlessly through my thoughts.
“Dad… running… hiding… can’t see him.”
