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Reid agreed, “We can’t lose you too.”
“Because this is any better!”
Hayes tried to wrap his arms around me, wanting and needing to hold me.
“Let go of me!” I shouted, trying to shake loose from his embrace.
Ignoring the pain cycling through my entire being, I roughly tried to pry away, only making him hold me that much tighter.
“Peach, I’m hanging on by a fucking thread here… Please…” he pleaded as I continued to struggle against him.
“I never wanted to hurt you. You know that… I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen. You refused to listen to me and now look at what’s happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I sincerely expressed, feeling like I was going to break at any moment. “You had so many chances to tell me the truth? Why would you rather me find out like this?”
He turned me to face him, still grabbing ahold of my arms.
“I didn’t want to lose you. Not after I fell in love with you.”
Hearing him say that for the first time was like acid on my skin.
It burned.
It scared.
It seared into my heart.
I lashed out, slamming my fist into his chest and he accepted every blow, knowing he deserved it.
I wanted to hurt him.
I needed to hurt him.
But also, through it all…
I wanted to continue loving him with every last part inside of me.
When all of a sudden, he caught my wrists mid-hit, tugging me toward his body. Holding me against his chest, against his heart. Against the agony and grief that would always live inside of him.
I broke down, losing all my strength.
To fight.
To cry.
To hate him.
I fell to the ground, and he came with me.
“I’m so fucking sorry…” he apologized, grabbing ahold of my face. Gripping onto it with so much strength and devotion. So much agony and pain. “I lost my mom too and I’ve spent every second since that day trying to live without her. If I could switch places with either of them, I would… I swear to you… I would in a second. But that doesn’t change the fact that I love you, Haven Beckham.”
I stared into his sorrowful eyes that were silently pleading for my forgiveness.
The harder he held me, the more I wanted to hurt him.
Break him.
Hate him.
Except I couldn’t.
My mother wouldn’t let me.
She knew… She always knew we’d find each other. Our connection was brought on by the loss of our mothers. An understanding only we could share.
“Do you hear me? I love you, Peach. I fucking love you.”
I bawled with his hands on the sides of my face.
“Haven, get up,” Jace ordered. “Now!”
“Jace…” Ledger coaxed. “Let her be.”
“Haven, I mean it,” Jace demanded. “Get your ass of the floor before I do it for you.”
“Jace,” Reid affirmed. “Ledger’s right. Back off.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, shoving Hayes’s hands away I stood.
“All of you!” I roared. “Enough!” I peered back and forth between them. “What did you do, Hayes? How was the accident your fault?”
When he didn’t answer fast enough, Jace did for him, “Your boyfriend was selling drugs at a party that got raided. Instead of arresting him, they called his mom to pick him up. He’s the reason she was carelessly driving and ran the red light that killed our mother. That’s the man you’re in love with, Peach,” he mocked.
My eyes connected with Hayes’s again.
“Is that true?”
“Haven—”
“Is it true?!”
“Yes.” He nodded. “But I was only selling drugs to get us out of that house. I couldn’t watch my old man slowly kill her anymore, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I was the one who did it for him.”
My hands flew to my mouth.
I wanted the truth and there it was.
“You want to protect your little sister,” Hayes stated, standing tall. “Well, all I wanted was to protect my mother.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Hayes interrupted, “Peach, I’ll make this easy on you. Your family is all you have, and I couldn’t live with myself if you chose me over them. We’ve all lost enough already and I’d rather you lose me then you lose what’s left of your family. I always thought you’d be the one who’d leave me, but as it turns out, I have to be the bigger man and leave you instead.”
I never expected what he said next.
However, it didn’t make it hurt any less.
Hayes
It took everything inside of me to break her heart for the last time.
“From this point forward, you’re fucking fired. Now get the hell out of my bar.”
I did what I had to do.
Even though…
It was the last thing I wanted to do.
Thirty-Seven
Hayes
It was after midnight as I sat at the dining room table in the hellhole of the house I grew up in. It was never a home. Despite my mother trying to make it one. I hadn’t been there in years, too many demons lived within these walls.
