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“I’m being honest, Karli. And that’s what the moment calls for. Honesty.” I exhale and smooth out my tone. “You’ve let your insecurities speak to me for long enough. By now, I know exactly what they sound like. I know that they’re lies, baby. Lies you tell yourself. Lies no one else believes except you.” I cup her cheek. “This? Us? This is real. My feelings are real.”
“I…I want to believe you but…”But she can’t.
“If you’re not ready. Fine. I’m here. I’m waiting for you. I’m willing to keep waiting until you’re ready. If you take just one step, I’ll take two. I’ll take ten. I’ll take a hundred. Just to close this aching distance between us. Don’t act like it’s not killing you, Karli. I understand that you’re scared but if you want this, just…just show me that you’re trying.”
I talk and I talk and I try to reason with her. But all she does is cry.
Fuck this. I’m not done trying. “I won’t let you sabotage this just because you don’t think you deserve it.” I reach out, taking both her hands in mine. “You’re only running from me because you’re scared. But Princess, you don’t need to be. I’ve got you.”
She whimpers again.
I go on. “You deserve to be happy, and I just want to help give you that. To show you what love should be. That’s it. No plans. Just one day at a time. You call the shots. Can we give that a try?”
She’s already shaking her head before I even finish. When Karli slips her hands out of mine and slides off the bed, the knife in my gut twists deeper.
“I can’t. I just can’t. This isn’t…We just need to break this off before things get too deep. Before someone gets hurt.”
With the sheets clutched to her chest, Karli backs away toward the door. Then she turns and dashes out of my bedroom, not once looking me in the eye. I hear a door slam across the hallway.
The fuck?
I sink back down onto the bed.
Goddamnit. She waits until I completely pour my miserable heart out before running away from me?
Shit, that stings.
Before someone gets hurt.
Yeah, a little too late for that.
45
MASON
Iroll over in my pink, bubblegum-scented sheets and stare up at the ceiling. It’s dark in here. The curtains are drawn. The lights are off.
I’ve lost all track of time and I haven’t gotten out of bed since I went to the bathroom to take a piss sometime yesterday. My phone is full of text messages from my cousins but I don’t want to see anyone or do anything or go anywhere. I’m gradually coming down from the headache that was plaguing me for the past few hours and I just want to stay here in stew in this misery.
Just last weekend, everything was perfect. Karli was here with me in Honey Hill and we were having the best time. Now, one week later, everything has flipped on its head.
Things weren’t supposed to turn out like this. Starlight Falls was supposed to be my fresh start. I was supposed to change my life. New town. New Mason. And all that jazz.
But I can see now, that I didn’t change at all. It didn’t take long for me to fall back into my old ways, getting tangled into knots for some woman who has no intention of being tangled into knots for me. As usual.
Except this time it’s worse. So much is on the line. My job at the clinic—I might really have a future there. My friendship with Felix—betraying him like this could really bite me in the ass in more ways than one.
Shouldn’t that be motivation enough to move on from whatever it is I mistakenly thought I had with Karli? Shouldn’t it be reason enough to get her out of my mind? Apparently not, because all I seem to think about all day is her.
When I tune out of my pity party, I hear footsteps in the hallway. Then I hear whispering on the other side of the door.
“Maybe we should just leave him alone. Maybe he needs his privacy.”
“He won’t need privacy if he’s dead. We need to check on him to at least make sure he’s alive.”
“But what if he’s sleeping?”
“Then we can sneak in and at least check for a pulse.”
