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I didn’t know if his words had been to his unborn child or me.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing did except him in my arms for what was probably the last time.
We stayed like that for a long time.
Both of us searching for what we’d never found—simple.
A love with no pain.
A love that brings us together not tears us apart.
A love uncomplicated.
But like he said, we didn’t get simple. We didn’t get the white picket fence. We didn’t get the happily ever after.
And I didn’t get to keep Connor.
He peeled out of my arms and stood, his hand snaking to the back of my neck. My knees weakened and my body quivered as our gazes locked.
“I need help, baby. I know that, but I can’t. Being drugged again… locked up. I’d lose my mind and never come back from that. I wouldn’t survive it and I’d lose you anyway. This way, I leave remembering you. That’s all I have left, Alina.” He put his finger on my lips when I went to tell him that maybe it wouldn’t come to that. That the doctors wouldn’t drug him, but the truth was if he lost it, they’d have no choice. “I’d risk everything for you and our child, and that’s why I have to go.” His fingers tightened on my neck. “To be a good father and the man you deserve, I need to be healthy, Alina. But I can’t try to get healthy without losing my mind.”
I closed my eyes unable to look at him anymore. Because I understood why and I hated that I did. He’d rather be permanently lost without me than lose his mind and forget me. “I left me with you a long time ago. I survived Moreno because I did.” He flinched and his brows drew together. “Wherever you go, the pieces of me are in you, Connor. They’ll never leave.”
“Fuck, shutterbug. I love you so damn much.” He tugged me into him and kissed me.
It was a kiss of desperation to never forget. To accept our complicated love that bound us together yet kept us apart.
And it was a kiss to say goodbye.Question 17: Do you want kids? And, if so, how many?THE BELL DINGED as I opened the door to the coffee shop and strode in. My heart sat in my throat, shredded and bleeding. Sanity was fragile; the mere slip of the fingers on the edge of the cliff and a person would be lost to the churning waters below.
That was where I was, hanging off the side of the cliff, fighting to hold on until after I spoke to my sister.
Her memories of me were already fucked.
I was her crazed brother she’d witnessed coming off a drug, chained to a basement wall, raging and wild, blood dripping from his wrists.
I was the brother who’d held a gun on his best friend, her fiancé.
And I was the brother who was leaving behind the woman he loved who carried his child.
That was the brother who was going to ride away and stay lost. But I wouldn’t be the raging brother who left without explaining why.
My entire body was so tense I felt as if I were on a goddamn rack with every muscle stretched past its limits. It had been that way since the damn green gate banged closed behind me and I left Alina.
I shook so badly, it took me several tries to get my bike started. When it roared to life, I rode to my sister’s coffee shop where Alina and London had met the day before. But the girl behind the counter said Georgie wasn’t there, but at the other location.
So here I was, still shaking and facing the sister I’d been too fucked up to talk to. Still was, but I had to do this. I’d never be the brother she’d once idolized, and I’d live with that, but I wouldn’t be the brother who left without saying goodbye. I promised Alina that and I’d do it for Georgie, too.
Georgie stood behind the counter, two pink streaks of hair hanging down either side of her face and the rest pulled into a messy knot. She chatted with a customer, her voice carrying across the room with light cheerfulness.
It was quiet being early Sunday morning and only two other people sat by the window clicking on their laptops. There was another girl behind the counter with her back turned to me as she worked a large machine that grinded and groaned then hissed.
When the girl was done, she turned with the mug in her hand and froze when her eyes landed on me. After a second, she walked over to Georgie and whispered something.
Georgie lifted her head.
Her hand flew to her mouth as she gasped, eyes wide with shock.
Neither of us moved as we stared at one another.
