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That is what will happen. Once I let go, we will fall apart.
I have to let go.
“I love you,” I admit but he already knows this.
“If you didn’t love me, this would be easier,” he says against my lips.
“I don’t like the person I am with you,” I tell him as I let my hands fall away from his, breaking the spell, and we peel apart like the water being pulled away from the sand.
“It doesn’t have to be that way. I can be a better person. I can try. Just don’t give up on me.” The desperation clings in the air like humidity before a storm. I want to believe him, but he’s not capable, not now anyway. Timing is everything.
“I don’t make you a better person.” That’s the real problem. For me, he will give up anything, do anything, be anything, even if it destroys everything around us. That’s not the kind of muse I want to be.
I pull back to get a good look at him. “It’s not our time.” Maybe someday it will be, but that day is not today. “I need to learn how to be me without you.” My eyes swim with tears. He is all I have ever known since I left home, and I fear he is a crutch I lean on far too much.
“That’s the difference between me and you,” Jack says as he strokes my cheek with a callused finger. “I don’t want to know what it’s like to live without you.”
I can’t bear to look at him now and cast my eyes down to his chest. It rises and falls to the rhythm of my own heart. “If it’s meant to be, we will find each other again.”
Jack sighs heavily and pulls me into his chest. Not only could I see his heartbeat under his shirt, now I can feel it, and it leaves an imprint on my soul.
He pulls away just enough so that I can see his face and his eyes darken. “Whenever I look at another woman, I will see you.” His hand sits at the back of my neck, keeping me in place. “Whenever I kiss another woman I will only taste you, and whenever I fuck another woman, I will wish she were you.”
Fire licks up my skin and into my throat. I am burning up from the inside out. “I have to go.”
The force of him is so strong that it takes everything I have to pull away. He has a hold over me, and I think he always will.
“Don’t go,” he begs, one last effort that is wasted.
“If you really love me, you will let me move on.” I back away from him.
He swallows hard. “Mia…” My name like a prayer, as if I am the only thing that can save him.
But I am no one’s savior, not even my own.
I turn my back to him, feeling the weight of his stare burning a hole in my back as I walk away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Burn it All
“YOU FUCKED HIM.” Cash jabs an accusatory finger at me, his face twisted with anger. “And then you married me.”
“I’m sorry. It didn’t mean…” I start to say but Cash interrupts me.
“Don’t you dare tell me it didn’t mean anything, because you fucking know it did.”
“Cash, please,” I beg, “I don’t want him. I want you. I married you.”
“Did you think a piece of paper would stop him?” Cash asks, standing there, looking as broken as I feel.
“After everything he’s done to you,” Cash says exasperatedly, “It’s like you love the pain.” It was as if he could see through me, right into the darkest parts of my heart. I feel exposed and shameful.
“It’s not that simple,” I reply and shake my head, moving towards him.
“Amber was right.” He looks as if someone stole something from him, ripped it right out of his hands and held it within reach, but snatched it away every time he came close. “It’s always Jack and Mia, everyone else is just collateral damage.”
Remnants of a dream are scattered across my mind and I grasp at them to try and remember. Only when the pieces start to come together do I want to tear them apart again.
