Page 262 of Breathe Like Hell

So much time had poured over the forest, over me, and yet, none of it would bring him back to the place where he’d fallen.

My tears had run dry and my chest was empty, my heart carved clean right out, laid on the moss in the form of shark teeth, begging.

This will be the thing to finally kill me.

I have already surrendered.

And then, the exact thing I’d been dreading happened.

Mason laid his hand on my shoulder.

He did it gently, the warmth of his palm seeping through my sweater, but that was enough to break the spell of fragile peace I’d so painstakingly constructed around my mind for the past few hours.

Months of misguided hope collapsed into the weight of a single hand on my shoulder.

That was it.

There wasn’t another theory waiting for me when I got home.

I’d run out of things to believe.

“Mason,” I choked out, closing my eyes tight.

“Baby,” he murmured, his voice thick.

I wanted him to tell me to try again, that it was okay, that there had to be another way. But he wasn’t going to do that. It was over. He wasn’t asking me to leave, to go home, to go sleep this off. He was asking me to let go.

There wasn’t another answer hidden beneath this one.

There was only silence.

“Mason,” I cried, my tears coming back with a vengeance now. I opened my eyes to see him kneeling beside me, his eyebrows pulled together and his jaw tense. I couldn’t leave.

No.

No!

Please!

I’m not ready.

I will never be ready.

Give me another day.

Another hour.

Another reason to try this again.

Mason didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to. He’d promised me one more day, one more try. And I’d used it. It was all over now.

The tree looked exactly the same.

Completely indifferent.

Something inside of me broke.

Every bit of hope I’d somehow been clinging to without really knowing was gone now.