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Not your home anymore.
“I tried texting you. Calling you too.”
“I was busy.”
“Right.” A beat passes, then, “Well good thing your roommate answered my FaceTime, otherwise I would’ve been making a trip to Allentown this evening.”
There’s a weird edge to his voice that has my brow furrowing. But it’s quickly forgotten when his words register, and I blurt harshly, “No.”
Mason’s brows fly up, and I don’t miss the flash of hurt in his eyes.
Shit.
Lowering my gaze, I shake my head. “I just mean?—”
“It’s cool. I get it.”
I peer up through my lashes, my stomach getting all twisted into knots when I see the resignation reflected back at me.
“You’re starting over.”
“Mase, that doesn’t mean—” I start to say, but quickly cut myself off.
He smiles, and it’s a sad, beautiful thing. I’ve missed his smiles.
“It’s okay,” he says more adamantly this time. “You more than fucking deserve it.”
Eyes stinging, I have to look away again, swallowing a couple times before I can speak. My gaze catches on the unreadable green-blue eyes staring back at me from across the room.
For a moment, I’d actually forgotten I wasn’t alone.
“Mason, I need to go,” I mumble.
“Wait. Just—” His breath hitches, and I drop my gaze back to the phone.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
The sincerity and regret boring through the screen are so strong, I could crumble from the force of it.
I could be home tonight.
Shiloh’s just over an hour of a drive, less than if I floor it.
I could see him again…really see him…feel him, make sure he’s not that same husk of a human I left laying in a hospital bed…
Thoughts and urges I’d done so well to shove down these last few months rise forth with a vengeance. Squashed only by one single, remaining logical thought:
And then what?
“I know,” I hear myself say, steeling myself. “We already went through this. It’s done.”
“It’s not done,” he says with an unexpected amount of fierceness. Shaking his head, his face bunches with a scowl.
My pulse kicks up, fluttering like it’s sprung wings.
“I was barely coherent in the hospital. It doesn’t count.”
