Page 68 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

She shook her head, disappearing into the bathroom. The clink of plastic bottles being shoved into a bag echoed in the room.

“Kat, please,” I said when she came back into the room, dropping her toiletry case into her purse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You never told me.”

“Don’t you dare blame this on me.”

“I’m not.” I held up my hands. “I’m only trying to explain. I didn’t know. You never talked about it. I made an assumption and it was the wrong one.”

“Why would I talk about it?” She whirled on me, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. “Why would I talk about how my mother hated me? Why would I talk about living in the dirt for two years because sleeping in a trash heap, in a makeshift hovel with tarps and metal sheets and mice, was better than the alternative?”

“I’m—”

“Sorry?” She went to the suitcase, slamming it closed and zipping it tight. Then she turned to me, her hands planted on her hips. “I can’t talk about that time. I don’t want to relive those memories. Sure, we all pretend that living in the junkyard was this magical fairy tale. But it was scary. We were scared. You have no idea what it’s like shivering yourself to sleep on cold nights and wishing you had just one more blanket. You don’t know how it feels to wake up so hungry you can’t see straight because all you had to eat the day before was half a peanut butter and honey sandwich on stale bread.”

I struggled to breathe. The raw, ruthless emotion on her face cracked my heart.

“We were sixteen,” she said. “So young and so foolish. But that was what life had dealt us and we made the best of it. Yes, there were some happy times. Yes, we were relatively safe. But the fear. You don’t know what it’s like to live in that kind of fear, so forgive me if I don’t want to remember just so you and your family can talk about it over coffee.”

She hefted her suitcase from the mattress and took three steps toward the door but stopped and turned again. “The reason I painted back then was because I needed something pretty. I needed to wake up to a world where I was in control. Where the flowers were pink and the sunshine was yellow because I said it was that way. It was the only control I had.”

My throat was burning, but I managed a nod and a hoarse, “Okay.”

“I stopped painting because I didn’t need it. I wasn’t scared anymore. When I came to Montana, I could wake up, look out the window and there was my magical meadow. There. In real life. For me to touch and know that tomorrow would be okay. I was safe because I’d found a home. And I was safe because I had you.”

“You’ll always have me.”

She shook her head, blinking away a sheen of tears. “No, I won’t.”

“Kat, please.” I closed the distance between us, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Don’t go. Let’s work this out.”

“I’m such a fool.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Pining after you for all these years. Hoping and dreaming that one day you’d love me the way I love you.”

My heart dropped. She loved me? The words unknotted the twisting fear in my belly. If she loved me, then we’d figure this out. We’d be together and we’d find a way to put this behind us. We could overcome this, right?

I opened my mouth to tell her I was in love with her, to drop to my knees and plead with her to stay. But before I could, she stepped out of my hold and my hands sank like bricks in water to my sides.

“Thank you.” Her voice was as icy as her glare. “You know what this trip was about? It was my chance to let you go, to stop wasting years waiting for you to love me. When you came along, I didn’t think it would help. But here we are and now I have what I wanted. You’re nothing to me now. Not even my friend.”

“We’re more than friends.”

She turned and opened the door, her parting words ringing loud and clear even after the door slammed shut. “Not anymore.”

Chapter Fourteen

Cash

In less than one week, I’d fallen in love with my best friend.

And in a single hour, I’d lost her.

I drummed my fingers on the reception desk, willing the man who’d disappeared behind the employees-only door to hurry the fuck up. My duffel bag rested at my feet. I’d tossed the clothes inside as haphazardly as Kat had done her own.

Stupid bastard that I was, her confession about loving me had sent me into a tailspin. When I should have been running after her, I’d stood frozen in the middle of our room.

It had probably only been five minutes, ten max, that I’d stood like a dumbfounded chump, but it had given her enough lead time to escape.

She loved me.

How long? How long had I been blind to the truth?