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He closes his eyes, shoulders falling in anguish. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Ainsley, I can explain.”
“How could you make your parents give me a job? I’msoembarrassed.”
When he looks at me again, I can tell he’s finding it hard to hold it together. “It wasn’t like that. Can I come in?”
“I’m not ready to talk about this.”
“Ainsley, please. Don’t send me away. I can explain.”
His plea makes my heart bleed. My body wants him back, to sink into his embrace because he makes everything better, but it’s him who caused this. He’s the reason I want to hide from the world and drown in the gut-wrenching heartbreak that threatens to swallow me whole.
“If you don’t go, I might do something I’ll regret. Or not.”
“I don’t care about that.”
I narrow my eyes. “You standing there pretending that you don’t pity me makes me want to hurt you. To take a knife to that shiny paintwork and ruin something you love.”
He looks over his shoulder to his car and back. “Do it. If that’ll make you feel better, go ahead. I don’t give a fuck about the car, Ainsley. Wreck the car, take everything I have, just don’t shut me out.”
“Well, why would you care about possessions when you could just replace them?”
“Five minutes. Please.”
“No. Right now, I don’t know what to think, so all I’m going on is how I feel. In fact, if you push this, you’re going to push me away because there is nothing I want more than space form you. You need to let me breathe.”
He exhales sharply as if I’ve winded him. Now he understands how I felt when I overheard his conversation with his parents. “God, you couldn’t have asked for anything else? How am I supposed to stay away knowing you’re hurting?”
He looks and sounds haunted: rough voice, eyes low, forehead creased in desperation. His hair is dishevelled like he’s been running his hands through it, and his tie has been removed.
“Because if you don’t give me this time, we have no chance at all.”
He leans closer, eyes pleading with me to hold on. “There’s still a chance. Promise me that. I’m not letting go, Ainsley. You can have your space, but I love you, and I’m not losing you.”
“All I can promise is that I will wait until I don’t feel like I’m dying before we decide what to do next.”
“Fuck,” he whispers, hanging his head. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
“Please go, Casper.”
He backs up, meeting my eyes one last time before he finally turns and walks away.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
I tossed and turned for most of the night, unable to switch off from the constant replay of Casper’s conversation with his parents. I hear it over and over in my head until the headache I have feels like someone’s taken a crowbar to my skull.
Even alone in my bedroom, I feel the humiliation of his actions.
How the hell do I get past this? There’s nothing he can say to take that away—to stop me feeling like I’m a charity case to him.
All the stupid shit he does keeps piling up, and I have no idea how much more there is that I don’t know about.
I think about that as the first of the morning sunlight streams through the slats in the blinds that I didn’t close properly last night. A blade of light stabs me in the eye. I roll over. Fuck the sun.
Casper sent a text around midnight, then one about thirty minutes ago. Neither I have read. I guess space doesn’t include messaging for him. Well, he can wait for a reply. I’m not ready for his excuses yet.
I’ve also had two missed calls from an unknown number early this morning, but I didn’t answer. I’m not sure if it’s Casper thinking I’ll pick up if I don’t know it’s him. Only thing is, that doesn’t seem like his style. He goes for the more direct, bulldozer approach.
None of it matters. It could be the fucking king, and I wouldn’t want to answer.
