Page 105 of Breathe Like Hell

“Not when it matters.”

“Wow. Okay. Forgive me for wanting some sort of closeness from you.” Her voice wobbled when she spoke. I couldn’t look at her now.

“Me taking care of you isn’t enough?” I gritted out. “I picked you up from his fucking apartment, took all the pain from your head he caused you without asking questions, and helped you get the rest you always need but never get. That’s not good enough?”

“When did I ever say that wasn’t good enough?”

“It’s implied.”

A sob burst out of her and my head whipped to the side just as her expression broke. She pressed her hands over her face, her sleeves soaking up her tears.

“What am I doing?” she cried. “I keep doing something wrong, and I’m not trying to. I keep making you more angry at me and I can’t fucking take it! What am I supposed to do?”

“For one, you could stop fucking him.”

She dropped her hands, eyes wide and desperate, lined with red. Her face was pale. “Is that what you need?”

Terror gripped my heart in a fist, and I had to swallow every word I wanted to say.

If I asked her to stop and she didn’t…

It was better not to ask.

Better not to know who she’d choose in the end.

I wanted it to be me. I wanted it so badly.

But I just…

When I saw her now, with her teary eyes and sad face, her closed-off posture, I hated myself even more. What am I doing to us? What am I doing to her?

“No,” I said under my breath and shoved the driver’s side door open, stepping out into the rain and slamming it shut behind me. I walked past the hood of the truck, standing near the edge of the rocks while rain hit my shoulders, staring out at the obscured horizon.

The ocean was so violent. Thrashing wildly under a sky webbed with electricity.

The passenger door creaked open behind me and Dakota was at my side after a few seconds.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

I took a few deep breaths, filling my lungs with cool air—but not enough neon. Never enough neon.

“Don’t be sorry, Masters,” I finally answered, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her to me, pushing down all my anger, forcefully shoving every bad thought to the back of my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I meant it. It wasn’t her fault I was so on edge all the time now.

“Okay. Can you help me with my homework today?”

Something warm glowed in my chest, loosening the knot that’d been there.

“Yeah. Of course I’ll help you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

DAKOTA

I didn’t want to tell Micah what Mason was doing to me—what he’d already done to me. All the things I’d let him do and all the things I didn’t let him do, that he did anyway. None of it ever stopped me from going right back to him, and admitting that to Micah made me feel like shit.