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I swallow. The heavy lump in my throat is too much—way too much. If he’d told me if it was her, Carmen Dallas, I would have refused this trip. But would that have made it better? No.
No. It would have made it worse. But can I go to the shoot tomorrow knowing that it’s her? Knowing that he’s staring at America’s sexiest woman for a number of hours through his lens?
No. I can’t be here, but I can’t not be here.
I feel sick. For once, it’s not a baby sick. It’s a nervous, heart-wrenching kind of sick. And I need to run somewhere, anywhere. To breathe.
I push my empty glass across the bar and push out of the restaurant. I run across the road to the beach and feel the sand through my bare feet, soft and hot, spilling between my toes. And I keep running. I run until the sand turns wet and hard and cold water crawls over my feet.
I stop at the water’s edge, far enough into the sea that my feet are always covered but farther away enough that it can only reach my ankles with a wave. I wrap my arms around my waist and breathe in the salty sea air, taking solace in the silence.
Taking the peace of the beach as insanity reigns inside.
Tyler’s hands slide down my arms to rest over mine at my waist. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “It was just hot in there. I needed air.”
He runs his fingers along my forearms, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Okay.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can hear it in his voice. But of course he wouldn’t believe me—if I can’t convince myself of a lie, I can’t expect anyone else to be convinced either.
“When is your shoot tomorrow?” I swallow, hoping he can’t hear the gulp.
“Ten a.m. Are you coming?”
I hesitate just long enough.
“You can come later,” he says softly. “Or I’ll meet you after.”
I nod and look down. The white foam capping the waves swirls around my ankles with each push of the water. Each one is certain yet unsteady, their force known but their direction wavering.
I feel like the waves. In this moment, I am a wave, crashing repeatedly. I’m powerful and strong, but I don’t know where I’m going. My path is so uncertain with so many choices.
My fingers twitch under Tyler’s.
We are the waves. Our love is the force, the crash, and our relationship the slow crawl up the sand, the one with no direction.
Because we have no direction.
Our love is leading us blindly into an ending that might not be all that happy.
My heart twists with that thought. And the doubt—always the doubt. Nudging at the corners of my mind despite fighting it away. I know it’s irrational and it’s wrong, but I can’t hold it at bay.
Now, the doubts are infinitely more. Just…more. More painful. More intense. More potentially devastating. Because I have two hearts to consider.
Two hearts beat inside me. Two hearts love inside me.
Two hearts that can be easily broken.
“Liv? Are you really okay?”
“I’m tired,” I reply softly. “I want to go back to the hotel.”
Tyler steps to the side and settles his arm around my shoulder, steering me back up the beach. He pauses for a moment to grab our shoes before reaching for me again.
I lean into his embrace, and instantly, I know my lie has driven a wedge between us. A part of me wants to take it back, to be honest with him, but I know it’s not that simple.
My addiction is my issue, just like his is his. I won’t try to fix him, but I know he’ll try to fix me.
