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I put up my hand. “It’s fine. I’ll be right back.”
Ezra warred, then conceded with a reticent dip of his chin. I went to the back door and hurried out, thankful I’d thought to grab my purse from his floor before I’d left his room. I used the key to let myself into the back door of the guest house, and I pressed my face into my hands the second I was inside.
“I need you to know I’ve never felt like this.” Ezra’s promise rippled through my mind, at odds with the one I’d clung to for so many years. “It’s just you and me, Jessica. You and me because we can never trust anyone else. No one will ever care for us the way we care for each other. They’ll only hurt us in the end, but I promise you, I will never fail you.”
I jolted when there was a light tapping at the door behind me. It was relief that hit me, an answer to the questions that spiraled and churned, and I turned, expecting to see Ezra.
Ice slipped down my spine when I saw it was his mother.
She must have heard me going out the back door and then came in through the side gate. Or maybe she’d been waiting.
I didn’t know.
The only thing I knew was I was trembling out of control when I went back to flick the lock and reopened the door.
She didn’t enter, she just lifted her quivering chin. Pain was there, set deep in her psyche. A brimming of protectiveness and a swelling of desperation.
“I don’t know you, Savannah, but I do know my son. And he’s vulnerable and weak right now. He might think he’s ready to move on, but he’s not. Not even close to it. He lost the love of his life. The woman he adored. The woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. His children lost their mother. The last thing any of them need right now is someone like you coming in here and disrupting their healing.”
“Someone like me?” It punched out of me on a wheeze.
Her head barely shook. “Someone who’s lost. A wanderer. Someone who will never belong. Someone who runs. Now that is something I can see about you, every time I caught you staring out at them over the last few weeks.”
Moisture stung the back of my eyes. I fought it. I fought it with all of me.
I might have been able to hold it together if she hadn’t continued.
“And he might think he truly cares about you, but my son is only looking for someone to save since he couldn’t save her.”
It was those words that pummeled, what had me crumpling in two and struggling to stand. Battered from all sides. I might as well have been on the ground curled into a ball, trying to protect myself as I was being kicked again and again.
Wheezing, my hand shot out to the doorframe to keep myself from falling.
Linda sniffed. “I truly hate hurting your feelings, Savannah. I’m sure you’re a nice person, but I think it needs to be said that you will never truly be a part of them. It’d be best if you left now before it causes more pain in the end, for all parties involved.”
Without saying anything else, she turned and walked back across the yard, disappearing around the side of the main house and through the gate.
While I stood there gasping. Voices came at me from every direction.
“Mommy, please, don’t.”
“Stop crying, you little brat. Do you know everything I sacrifice for you?” Sharp nails dug into Savannah’s shoulders as her mom shook her hard. “You are pathetic. Worthless. A waste of space.”
I choked around the pain, my chest clutching when a different voice penetrated.
“You don’t have to go it alone, Savannah. Not anymore.”
My hand curled into my sweater.
“My son is only looking for someone to save since he couldn’t save her.”
No. It was more. We were more.
“You can trust me, Savannah. I would never hurt you.” Bryce touched her face when he promised it.
A lie.
So many brutal lies.
So many promises.
I staggered back into the guest house, and the door drifted shut behind me. Did I want this too much? Did I need him too much? How had I come to rely on someone when I knew better than to ever fully give that trust?
My spirit wept, clawing at my insides, at my heart and my mind.
A toil of confusion and doubt.
I raked at the tears that fell down my face. I hated them. I hated the weakness. The vulnerability.
I sniffled, sucking it down, and I dug into my purse, pulled out my phone, and tapped out a message.
Me
I’m not feeling great. I think I’m going to skip breakfast.
Why did it feel like a betrayal? Like I was stabbing Ezra in the back? Like I was shunning his kids?
