you. I thought… I thought if I loved you enough, gave you enough, that I could erase everything else. Drown out the hate with my love. But it’s hard to fight a battle against an unknown opponent, Madd.” He blows out an unsteady breath and more tears fall from his eyes. “For years I’ve battered myself against the wall you hide your secrets behind but it never falls. I can’t force you to let me in. I’ve given all I can, Madd, and it’s still not enough.”
My fight against my own tears proves useless as one breaks free and glides down my face.
“It’s time for me to walk away. I need you to let me go.”
Let him go. How the fuck am I supposed to let the other half of my soul walk away from me, knowing he’s never coming back? Maybe if you’d told him that he wouldn’t be leaving.
I shake my head, feeling the walls around me closing in. “I can’t do this alone. I need you.”
Jax leans forward and I meet him, my lips greedily taking everything he gives. A voice in the back of my mind screams at me to take it slow, to savor and memorize every second of his touch. But all too soon he’s pulling away.
“I’d give anything in the world for that to be true, but you don’t need me, Maddox.”
“How can you say you love me and walk away, huh? What sense does that make? So now you abandon the people you love, is that it?” I say, not ready to let go of the anger.
“This is the purest love there is, Maddox—the kind I have for you. Can’t you see? I’m walking away, my own heart be damned so that you can find the one who can finally set you free.”
“Jax,” I moan his name as the finality of his words settle in my chest.
“I love you too,” he says, reading my actions for what they really are. The words I’ve never given him because I can’t bring myself to say them. Words that are buried in a place so deep, I’m not sure even I can set them free.
Jax leans forward and gives me one last, chaste kiss. “And I’ll spend forever wishing it was enough.”
CHAPTER 4
OAKLEY
I collapse onto my bed and wince when the metal frame creaks as if it’s in pain.
“One of these days you’re going to do that and go right through to the floor.”
I open my right eye to glare at my roommate, Agnes. Her eyes are filled with mirth, probably wondering how she can help my old bed along so she can witness my demise.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn, causing her wrinkly, sagging gobbler to sway with the force of her laughter.
“How’d it go today?” her tone changes to one of concern. “Why do you look like you had a fight with the Kool-Aid Man and he won?”
I sigh. How’d it go today?
“Well, it went about like this—I walked twenty minutes across town to this indoor kids playground that I heard were looking for someone to work the ticket counter. By the time I got there, I was drenched in sweat and looked like a drowned kitten. But since it was so far, and walking the same route tomorrow would only bring the same results—I went inside.”
I shuffle on the bed until I’m on my side facing Agnes. She twirls her finger in the air, her way of telling me to continue. “So, things were going well until the woman interviewing me decided to take me out on the floor and show me where I could potentially be working. It all went downhill from there.” I roll my eyes at the memory of my day from hell.
“First, I jammed the ticket machine so badly that they had to call the repairman who regretfully informed them that he couldn’t get there until the end of the week. I was sure I would be a goner, but the woman interviewing me was clearly a saint living among us and took me to the refreshment counter. I found filling the food orders to be much easier to handle than the piece of machinery we had tried first. So things were looking up again… which is right about when I should have been expecting them to go downhill. Not only because that’s what happened, but because that’s always what happens.”
Agnes hides a grin behind her hand, but her eyes are alight with the laughter she’s trying