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I shook my head, a small laugh spilling from my lips. Fuck, I was wrecked. Destroyed. In pieces and cradled in her palms.
I groaned and tugged her to me, slanting my lips across hers. Because I couldn’t let these confessions end without kissing her to the point she forgot her fucking name. Especially since I didn’t know how to fucking respond to her.
six
Mikayla
I glancedat Beau’s text on my phone. Usually, even after two months of being together, excitement filled me at the sight of his name on my phone, but not today.
I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of feeling anything but all-consuming pain today. Sadness. Anger.
None of this shit was fair.
Beau: You’re quiet, goldie.
Yeah… I was quiet. I knew that. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about his feelings today. I’d been withdrawing from him and tucking into myself for the past week. I didn’t know how to handle this. I’d done what I could to prepare for this day, but how the fuck didanyoneprepare for something like this? Wasn’t like preparation made the pain any easier or the memories somehow duller.
How was I supposed to navigate the one-year anniversary of my parents’ passing? How was I supposed to cope? I didn’t know how to do this. The wound of their loss was still as fresh as the day it’d happened. It was easier to navigate the pain and tuck it away and try to focus on moving on when a date like today wasn’t staring me straight in the face.
But today, the heartache was impossible to turn my back on.
Lennox knocked on my open office door, a frown tugging at her lips. “I think you should take the day off today,” she told me. “You look like hell, Mikayla.”
She had no idea what today was either. No one did. How did I tell someone my parents were dead? That I’dheardthem dying? Even now, crunching metal and shattering glass echoed in my ears. Their screams bounced off the walls of my mind.
I nodded and stood to my feet, not even bothering to argue. I was no good here, and even people who normally greeted me with beaming smiles and warm hellos were avoiding me today. I didn’t even have the energy to argue with her that I needed to be here, that I had things to do. I’d been staring at the same spreadsheet for two hours now without doing anything on it. Focusing was non-existent.
I slipped past her without a word and headed out to my car. My phone rang, Beau’s name and handsome face on the screen. His dark hair was windswept, and he was grinning at me, his blue eyes alight with laughter and complete adoration for me.
I swiped my thumb across the screen to decline his call and then started my car, heading home. I needed time alone. I didn’t want to be bothered—not even for a simple text or phone call. I just didn’t have the energy.
When he called right back, I turned my phone off. A tear slid down my cheek, and before I could even begin trying to stem the flow of tears, they gushed down my cheeks in a waterfall. I sobbed, white-knuckling the steering wheel. The road in front of me was blurry, but I still could see well enough to make it across town to my apartment—by a miracle, really.
When I got home, I collapsed on my couch, curled into a ball, and finally released all my pain, muffling my sobs and cries with a pillow.
* * *
“Mikayla!” Beau shouted. A moment later, his fist was banging on my front door. My eyesight was bleary when I cracked them open. My head was pounding, and my tongue was thick in my mouth from dehydration. Dried tears made the skin on my cheeks feel tight.
“Mikayla, answer the fucking door before I break it open!” he barked, his banging never stopping.
I slid off the couch and slowly made my way to the front door, my steps sluggish. I felt empty. Drained. Dead.
I unlocked it and opened it, looking up at the man in front of me. His jaw was clenched, a storm brewing in his eyes. I’d never seen him look angry, I realized. He was always calm and put together. But right then, there was no mistaking the rage in his eyes.
“What?” I asked, my voice sounding dead to my own ears.
“What?” he asked incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? I couldn’t get in fucking touch with you, and you’ve been weird all goddamn week. I left work early to check on you since your damn phone is off, and Lennox told me she sent you home. Do you know the fucking panic I felt thinking I was going to drive past your accident somewhere?!” he finally shouted at me.
“Didn’t want to be bothered,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders. “I still don’t. So, can you go?”
“Like hell,” he snarled. He pushed past me into my apartment and snatched the door from my grip, slamming it closed so hard that the walls shook. “I’m not someone you can just push away,” he warned me. “What the fuck is going on, Mikayla?”
I turned my back on him to walk back to the living room, hoping he’d get the memo and leave. But no chance in hell. He gripped my arm and spun me back around to face him. I stumbled and slammed into his chest. “Start talking, woman.”
“Let me go,” I snapped at him. A storm was brewing in my chest, and if he didn’t leave, this whole situation was going to turn ugly. I just wantedspace. Why couldn’t I have that? What was so wrong about me having a little bit of fucking space?
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on. You want to break up, Mikayla? That it?” Voicing it made pain flash through his eyes, but he smothered it before it had time to stick around. “If that’s it, be woman enough to end it instead of pulling away from me,” he growled.
