Page 215 of Breathe Like Hell

He flinched so subtly no one else would have noticed. But I did. I’d always notice everything about him, because he used to be the only thing in the universe to me. I’d breathed through him, my heart only beating because his did, my mind only quieted by the feeling of his fingers running through my hair in the darkness.

Never again.

“You are so sick,” Mason said, shaking his head. “So sick in the head. You think you have the right to do that to me, but you don’t. You do owe me something.”

“Get over it.”

“Did you ever even think of me after you left? Or did you⁠—”

“Yes,” I cut him off, anger infiltrating my voice. “I thought about you every single fucking day, Ash.”

His mouth was still open like he might say something, a million emotions flickering through his irises, but he kept silent.

“Every single second of every single minute of every single hour,” I continued. “You are the only thing I’ve thought about for the past twenty two years. Until her. How could you not know that?”

A dry laugh fell from his lips and he glanced away briefly before his eyes fixed back on mine, a new fire burning in them. His anger was like electricity in the air, and I hated that I needed to be so in tune with it, hated that this still felt like my responsibility, hated what he could do to me if he wanted.

“You. Didn’t. Look. Back,” he gritted out. “Do you know how that felt to me?”

“Do you know how that felt to me?” I fired back, louder. “Do you think that’s what I wanted to happen? Do you think that’s how I wanted us to end up? Do you really fucking think I didn’t try my hardest to make it any other way?”

“You didn’t! You could’ve spoken to me, explained your thoughts, given me literally any warning before ripping my entire fucking life away from me!”

“I couldn’t talk to you. I just couldn’t.”

“Why? I don’t understand. I’ve thought about this so many times in the past two decades, wondering why you couldn’t have given me a single conversation. A last moment with you. Something. You left, without another word. So many years, dropped just like that and never spoken about⁠—”

“Enough.”

“But you just⁠—”

“I said enough! Do you want an explanation or not?”

Mason quieted, pressing his lips together.

“I’m only going to say this once,” I warned, my fingers twitching unsteadily. Terror sunk its sharp teeth into the flesh of my throat, ripping through me.

His eyes stayed locked on mine.

“Our last night together,” I started. The kitchen seemed to fall away, until it was just me and Mason in an endless void of twisted pasts. Until it was just me and the man who still held parts of my severed soul, staring at each other as deeply as we used to. I couldn’t hide from him, and I didn’t try in this moment. It was too late for that. “You don’t remember it. I know you don’t, because you were too far gone for me to hold you. I lost my grip and I couldn’t get it back, not even a little bit.”

The color drained from his face.

His hands slowly fell to his sides.

Whatever anger had been keeping him upright vanished. He looked sick.

“It didn’t happen,” I continued, my hands shaking too badly to hide. “But it almost did. All because I was too scared to tell you I was struggling. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to talk about that.”

His mouth opened instinctively, but no sound emerged. Panic spread across his face as he realized his voice was gone, horror sinking into his expression as he understood I’d taken his voice, and he could no longer respond to me.

He couldn’t say anything at all.

I fucking need it like this.

“I knew I couldn’t stay with you anyway, but that was the final thing that pushed me to leave. I didn’t want to. But…now you understand.” The end of my response died away, the sounds becoming quiet on my tongue.

I couldn’t put the worst of it into words. The weakness that’d entered my body on that night, the genuine panic and fear of him. I didn’t blame him. He’d trusted me to be able to hold him, and it was my fault that I couldn’t. I tried. I fucking tried, until I had nothing left, until all my strength had bled out of me into him.