Page 171 of Sin With Me


Font Size:  

“I can’t do this,” he whispers, his deep voice cracking with the pain his words have created. He shoves his body back, his eyes wide and frantic. He climbs from the couch and I stare after him in shock. “I can’t go down this road again. Not when I know I’ll be the one to lose.”

And then, he leaves, breaking me just like I knew he would.

So damn easily.

“Hi, Mama,” I say as I lay sunflowers across the base of the cross-shaped gravemarker. The concrete bench is hard and unyielding as I sit on it, heated from the sun, the stone soaking the heat up like a desperate lover.

My fingers twist around my phone, my mind screaming at me to check the time again, to just see how long it’s been since he left, but I force myself not to. I can still feel his lips on mine, the way his breath ghosted over my skin. I can still feel my heart falling, my soul falling with it.

I can feel him pulling away, jumping out of my reach and to his feet, his hand raking through his hair, expression hard as he stared down at me like he was desperate. Like he was angry. Like he was accusing me of something I didn’t know, that I didn’t understand.

It took all I had not to beg, not to fall to my knees in front of him and sob. To worship at his altar, praying for forgiveness—demanding he pray for mine.

“Sorry I haven’t been to visit in a while,” I choke out. My throat threatens to close as I stare at the stone in front of me.

Jane Anne Meyer-Payne.

She never gave up Daddy’s last name, and it was always something I silently thanked her for. For never making me feel like I had to give him up either. For never leaving him in the past and fully sinking into the Payne’s. Even if they were our new family, this our new home, Daddy would always remain a steady presence.

A sob shoves its way up my throat at the thoughts of him, the way he loved Mama so fiercely. I’d always dreamed of having a love like theirs, it was something fairytales were made of. But then he died, he left Mama, and even if she pulled herself together, Isaac there to help her put the pieces back, she was never the same. Her smile was never as bright, her eyes never as warm.

It was like the day Daddy died, she died with him.

Maybe I did, too.

“Life has just been so crazy lately,” I continue, wiping my cheeks with shaky fingers. My phone is like a lead brick in my hand, a siren calling me to look, begging me to take a peek.

I force myself not to.

“You wouldn’t believe the things that are happening,” I mutter. “Roman’s back, Mama. Can you believe that?”

I told her everything. I sat right here the morning after he left and held onto the stone like it was her; like if I held on tight enough I could pretend like it wasn’t the unforgiving, harsh stone that marked her forever grave. Instead it was her again, my mother hugging me back, whispering soft things as she petted my hair, promising it would all be okay.

But she didn’t do that. She couldn’t.

So I held onto the stone, hugging it tightly to my chest like it was the only lifeline I had in the middle of a hellfire so hot, it scorched any peace I had left.

“He’s so…” I let out a harsh breath, tears still streaming freely down my cheeks.

I don’t know what he is.

Without telling myself to, my eyes lower the phone as I flip it rightside up. The time mocks me. It’s been hours since he left, and an abyss of emotions has opened in my chest, all screaming at me the truth: he’s never coming back. I’ll never see him again.

He’s abandoned me, just like he did before.

“You wouldn’t even recognize him,” I tell her gravestone. The sun beats down on me, the only warm comfort I have in this otherwise bleak cemetery. My throat threatens to close, her name a blurry mess, a mere shadow of the vibrant soul she used to be.

Tipping my head back, I stare up at the blue sky, clouds floating along like it’s just another day, like I’m not sitting where I am, talking to this inanimate object like it’s my mother.

I want it to be my mother.

“Why?” I whisper, the word breaking. “Why did you have to take her?” The words spill out before I can catch them, the truth whisking away on a hot wind. More words form on my lips, words I’ve never dared speak, or even think. Words I’ve never let myself feel, not until this moment. “I hate you.”

They rip from my throat with such ferocity, I almost don’t recognize my voice in the silence. Once they’re out, every other emotion, every other word I’ve held in since the day Daddy got sick comes out with them.

“I hate you for taking them all from me.” I cry to a man I know isn’t listening, to a mythical being floating somewhere above, looking down on me, probably with a mocking smile on his face.

He’s won.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com