Page 132 of Before We Break

I wish I could say the words she needs to hear. Wish I could tell her I love her, cast aside all of my fear and uncertainty to set her mind at ease, but I can’t, so I do the next best thing and kiss her.

If she’s right—if I have the capacity to love deeply, I hope I never find it. Love holds far too much power over the people it afflicts, devouring them from the inside until there’s nothing left but pain.

If I could allow myself to love anyone, there would be no one more deserving than Clio. I’m already teetering on the edge. The fall would be effortless if I could only get past my fear of drowning when I reach the bottom.

THIRTY-SEVEN

THE ONE WHERE HE BEGS

♫ Breakfast - Dove Cameron

CLIO

When I signed my name on the contract, I failed to consider the repercussions. In true Clio Marsden fashion, I didn’t look both ways before I crossed the line, and now I’m in love with a man who’s convinced loving me back would be our downfall. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. I felt it in the deliberate, measured way he kissed me.

When we left that cliffside, I felt like I was standing at the bottom waiting for him to leap. How long can I stand here before the waiting becomes unbearable?

I tuck the blanket around Auggie’s shoulders and press a kiss to the top of his head.

“Night, Cici,” he mumbles.

“Good night, sweet boy.”

I click off the bedside lamp and grab his processors off his nightstand, tiptoeing out of the room and closing the door quietly. I head for Noah’s room, but his charger isn’t plugged in where I thought it would be, so I pull out my phone and shoot off a text.

Me: Where’s the charger for Auggie’s ears?

Noah: Should still be plugged in beside my bed.

Me: Nope. Try again.

Noah: Check the top drawer of my nightstand.

I pad to the opposite side of the bed and pull open the drawer. What I see there stops me in my tracks. Tucked beneath the charger for Auggie’s cochlear implants is a sketchbook open to a charcoal portrait…

Of me.

My phone chimes once more. Noah’s name lights up the screen.

Noah: Wait.

I sink onto the side of the bed with the sketchbook in my hands. Setting aside the fact that it’s a portrait of me, the artwork is stunning. It captures every detail down to the last freckle on my nose.

Careful not to smudge anything, I flip to the next page, curious what I’ll find—a sketch of Auggie, maybe. I suck in a sharp breath when it’s yet another portrait of me, this time from the festival. Even in shades of grey, I can almost feel the sunlight on my face.

The next page features a rougher sketch drawn in blue ink on a torn-off piece of paper from my notebook with strawberries around the edges. It’s haphazardly taped into the book with folds in the paper like it was hastily tucked away before it found its home inside the book.

A muffled thud precedes a set of heavy footfalls carrying down the corridor until Noah is standing in the bedroom doorway, chest heaving, his silhouette backlit by the light in the hall. He’s devastatingly handsome, even in silhouette.

His gaze flits from me to the sketchbook.

“Fuck.”

NOAH

I’m just finishing up with my last client when my phone chimes in my pocket. “I’ll see you back here in six weeks. If you need anything, just text me.”

“Thanks. I’ll see ya.”