Page 114 of Breathe Like Hell

“Not usually,” she answered, looking out at the ocean. “But, um, Anthony is getting married next year, and nobody has met his fiancee. So, we’re doing Thanksgiving at my parent’s place. It’s going to be stupid. I don’t want to meet her.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“Absolutely not.” Her head whipped around, her concerned expression looking more fearful under the gray light from the sky. “I don’t want them to know anything about my life. And it would cause arguments. I’d rather just be silent so none of them notice me. It won’t be difficult.”

I hated what she was saying. Hated it so fucking much.

Hated thinking about Dakota going most of her life never being noticed by anyone, when she was the only thing I saw. Lonely and quiet and hurting, distanced from the rest of the world because nobody took the time to pay attention to her. No porch light on outside because she liked the darkness. She was used to it. Used to never being seen.

“You know I’ll go if you ask me to, though? Even if it’s terrible. I want to be there for you.”

“You don’t understand, Mason. It would be terrible for me.” She stared out over the waves, pressing her sweatshirt sleeves just below her eyes to catch the tears forming in her eyes. “And are you telling me you wouldn’t try and kill my brother if you saw him?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“I know you have. But you have to also know that’s not what I want, okay? I don’t want to feel any more conflicted about that part of my life than I already do. I don’t want to watch people grieve him.” She sniffled, and I felt I could understand what she meant.

If she felt sad about his death, that would only wreck her mind worse.

It was better not to know how that grief might feel to her.

“I’m not going to go against your wishes,” I promised.

“Thank you.” She sniffled again, then went back to focusing on her journal. She was attaching charms to the ribbon now—well, trying to. “Can you open this ring?”

Dakota held up the little charm, pointing to the tiny silver jump ring on the end of it. I took it out of her hands and bent the metal open, then closed it once secured to the piece on the end of the ribbon.

“I should’ve made you buy pliers,” she said.

“I mean, my hands seem to work fine.”

“Yeah.”

I stared at her side profile, watching her cheek lift as she smiled softly, my mind full of so much fucking love for her. Love to the point of agony.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

DAKOTA

The distillation column was cooling down as Micah helped me with the last problem on my Process Safety homework. We’d successfully completed all my missing assignments at this point, and I was fully caught up in all my classes—as caught up as I could be. Having Micah’s help didn’t make me into a genius able to instantly comprehend all chemical engineering topics.

He’d been explaining things—engineering concepts I was supposed to know—to me in bed sometimes, with my head on his chest and his voice all rumbly against my cheek. I liked it, even when I forgot stuff.

As much as I hated being denied the closeness that came with sex, it’d forced me to learn about him in other ways. He was so damn perceptive. It scared me and comforted me in equal parts—and made me wonder why I’d ever thought he wouldn’t know I was hooking up with Mason. Of course he knew. Sometimes it felt like he knew every single thing about me.

I didn’t sleep with him every single night, but most of them. I usually spent the other ones with Mason. When Aamon was still alive, I’d been dying to get my independence back, tired of being passed between them like a child with divorced parents, but now I didn’t mind so much. Sleeping alone wasn’t a particularly appealing notion to me.

Aamon’s death had simplified my life in some ways, but complicated it in others.

I no longer had any moments with Mason and Micah together.

Our awkward dinners and tension-filled movie nights were now a thing of the past, and I didn’t like it. Even with the animosity between them, I wanted to be around both of them at the same time. It made me feel whole in a way I never did when with only one of them.

That was why I’d told Mason to pick me up from campus now. To force an interaction.

I was counting on his guilt still being strong enough to do what I wanted him to do.

“You ready to go?” Micah asked, drawing me out of my scheming brain.