Page 300 of Breathe Like Hell

If there was another goodbye waiting for us, it would have to come from him.

I was surrendering.

“You didn’t deserve the way I left you,” I admitted lowly, my eyebrows pulling together. “Nor the way I treated you when I saw you again. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, because you didn’t deserve that.”

“I did,” he contested.

“You didn’t.”

“How can you say that?”

“How can you disagree? Don’t tell me you haven’t been angry with me because of it for the past two decades.” My jaw ached from how tightly it’d been clenched.

“I didn’t know then what I know now.” He laughed once under his breath, but there wasn’t any humor in the sound.

“But that⁠—”

“This is never going to work,” he said too quickly, cutting me off, his gaze lingering on the horizon instead of me. My stomach tightened. He hadn’t even given himself time to think. “I only asked because I thought you’d agree.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“You promised me honesty,” I gritted out, anger infiltrating my tone, my bruised heart slamming on my ribs to the point of bloodshed. “This isn’t honesty.”

“It’s not?”

“Don’t make me look. Don’t make me fucking check to see if you’re lying.”

Mason got to his feet, stepping away from the cliff. I joined him. He knew I could search his emotions if I wanted, see exactly how affected he was by me, by this conversation. There was no point in lying or pretending as if he’d asked about us solely to have a reason to end us. It was bullshit.

“Fuck you. Stay out of my head. I don’t know what⁠—”

“Ash,” I snapped. “Are you walking away? Are you saying you’re done?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” He abruptly stopped walking after only a few steps, but remained facing away from me. His shoulders rose and fell with his harsh breathing.

If I don’t say it now, I’m going to lose him again.

“Well…” My voice almost disappeared. “I would want it to work.” I cleared my throat, hands shaking. “I do want it to work.”

His head dropped forward and his shoulders stopped moving as he held his breath, not moving at all now. His hands hung motionless at his sides.

I’d wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so still.

I approached him, instinctively raising my hand to lay my palm on his shoulder—but stopped. My hand hovered in the air, a mere inch from his body.

Then I slowly let it rest, tension seeping out of my body at the warmth of him, even through his clothes. His shoulders began to move again with his breath, almost stuttering like he was struggling to breathe evenly. I couldn’t breathe evenly, either.

“You don’t need me, Micah. Not in the way I need you. You’ll never need me like that. I’ll always be a burden.”

“I do need you.”

I encouraged him to turn with the pressure of my hand. He did, stepping to face me. His eyes were shiny, just like mine. For once, I wasn’t trying to blink it away.

“But why? I make you worse. I make her worse.”

“You asking me why I need you is like asking me why I need the other half of my fucking soul.”