Page 131 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Catty.”

Catherine shrugged, and readjusted her messenger bag on her shoulder. “My dad said that he didn’t know who I was, and I really don’t, either. That hurt, like in my chest, it hurt. I really messed up here, Cross, and I don’t want to keep doing that.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, still unsure in his heart and cold in his fingertips. “This is about your parents?”

“Not all. I need to take a step back, figure me out without …” Catherine waved between them, saying, “All of this craziness. I don’t want to be a stupid girl that does stupid things just because she loves someone.”

“You do stupid things because you want to, Catherine.”

If he went along with her ride, or she went along with his, that was just a byproduct.

“Maybe. Can we do that, Cross? Step back, slow down … be friends?”

Catherine wasn’t a good liar. Cross had found she had tells when she lied just like anybody else. This was about her parents, at least to some degree. Or her father, more likely. Maybe she wanted to be some kind of perfect daughter, but that shit just wasn’t possible.

She couldn’t be perfect for them.

She loved him a little too much, despite what was happening. He knew she loved him; that was why her hands were clenched so tight around her bag strap. Her knuckles were white. She thought she was hiding her trembling fingers, but he could still see them. She loved him enough not to look him in the eye while she screwed them over because she thought she could hide the tears.

Catherine was wrong.

She couldn’t be perfect.

She wasn’t meant to be.

And she had always been a bit too sly when no one was looking.

Catherine had to figure that shit out on her own, though. Cross couldn’t be the one to show her things she wasn’t ready to see about herself.

But if it was what she wanted, who was he to say anything?

Nobody.

No one at all.

“Whatever you need,” he heard himself say.

Catherine nodded, a false, small smile curving her lips. He reached out to bring her in for a hug, a kiss, or anything, but she pulled away.

Cross learned something then.

Really learned something.

He didn’t feel true pain until Catherine pulled away. It wasn’t real to him until she made it that way, and not with words.

He’d taken punches, broke bones, and ached. He’d fought bare-knuckled until his hands were bloody ribbons, got concussed on a football field more times than he knew was safe, and pushed limits he didn’t even know his body had until he found them.

He knew pain.

This was not the same.

It was a deep, unsettling pain that started from somewhere in his chest and radiated outward. It was in his mind, too, and in his soul. Stripping out veins and ripping through sinew. It was a pain he felt once before; a pain she had caused then, too.

Although then, it had been lesser, he thought. He had not understood why, or how, but it got easier to breathe. Maybe because he was younger, stupider, and found easy distractions all around him to make it better. Maybe because he didn’t understand.

He didn’t understand love, even if that was what he had felt.

First love was the worst.