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Because it’s painfully true… and proven.
I turn my chin, trying to hide the wound. I start hobbling away. I’ll jump off that balcony before Redix sees my tears.
“Cade, wait.” He gently grabs my arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I won’t turn around. They’re falling down my cheeks, drops of vulnerability only he can draw from me.
“Please just leave.”
For days, for months, years, I’ve spent building muscles on my body, strength in my heart, and skills in my hands to fight this off.
But he comes in my door and in minutes… it’s all gone.
“Look at me, Candy Cade.”
That gentle voice?
That’s from ten years ago.
Redix didn’t say words back then. He poured them like warm oil over my heart, healing my every ache.
Tonight, it only causes me more.
“I’ve never told anyone.” I can’t look at him while I keep our promise.
I know what I’ll see; a face I can’t stop loving; a body I can’t stop wanting; a soul I’m bound to.
The man I can’t have.
“It’s our secret, Redix. And I’ll die with it. I’ve been dying since it happened, and you left.”
He barely says it. “It breaks my heart when you cry.”
I close my eyes. “Then you should have nothing left of it by now.”
His hand won’t let go of my arm. “Did you really mean it?” Tenderly, he’s holding on. “That you wished we never happened?”
“I don’t know.” It’s true. It’s streaming tears down my cheeks. “I loved you so much.” Saline spills over my lips. “But I hate how much this hurts now.”
The heat of his touch turns back pages to tender moments we shared, not brutal ones like this.
“We’ve always been too close, Cade.” The wisdom in his words injures me more. “That’s why I left. And why I didn’t come back. I knew we’d get too close again if I came home too soon. And that can’t happen. I hurt you before, and I’m not doing it again.”
With three steps away and a soft whoosh, I hear him leave.
He does it every time.
I bite my lip so hard because the tears won’t stop. They fall because I hate him.
Because he’s right.
Because even a broken heart can love someone so much that it wishes for another chance with him, to fill its hopeless cracks.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dear Candy Cade,
This journaling shit works.
