Love Triangle Six Books of Torn Desire - Willow Winters Page 0,525

he takes another step forward.

“You could have gotten another job.” All I can see is red. The words come out automatically, but my mind is racing. My breathing is heavy.

“Who was going to hire me?” he asks me, his shoulders rising faster as his breathing gets heavier. “You were just starting out and needed every penny I could earn.”

“Don’t act like you did this for me!” I spit at him with anger. My hand beats on my chest. “Don’t you dare blame this on me!”

Tears prick my eyes as he stares at me without saying a word.

Shame and guilt heat my body. Both of us are raging with emotion. Both of us want to tear the other person apart. That realization is all I can take. Tears spill over and I have to turn away from him. With my back to him, he tries to touch me and I rip my arm away from him. I shake my head and firm my resolve.

“Please leave me alone. I’m begging you, Evan. If you love me, please get away from me.”

Chapter Twenty

EVAN

There’s no hope in the darkness,

No light to move toward.

There’s no way to ease the pain,

No forgiveness she can afford.

The truth I cannot change,

I’m a sinner and I confess.

But I refuse to let her go,

She’s my love and nothing less.

I love you, Kat, and I’m sorry.

I text her again, the cellphone screen lighting up the dark bedroom in Pops’ house, my old bedroom. The stupid posters reflect the light that scatters into the room in stripes from the blinds on the window. The sound of the traffic is louder here and everything about it reminds me of the life I used to lead. The one before Kat. The one I’m so damn ashamed of now.

I’ll never forget the look of disappointment on his face when I showed up a few hours ago with a duffle bag. It’s like even he lost hope in me making it right with Kat.

It’s crushing to leave her. But it’s different this time. It’s hopeless.

I feel so worthless and it’s never been more apparent to me that my life is meaningless without Kat in it.

I swallow thickly as I lean back on the bed and fall into the flat pillow and close my eyes. I’ve never felt so alone. I wish I could take it all back.

How fucking childish. I know it is. But in this moment I make a silent wish that I could just go back five years and do it all the right way this time.

As I close my eyes and feel my heart slow and my blood turn cold, I remember one of the last conversations I had with my mother.

She’d seen me with Kat while we were out one night. Just a coincidence, but she kept acting like it was more than it was.

Kat was a fling and a good time. She’s someone I wanted more and more of and I made damn sure to monopolize her time until I had my fill, but of course that time would never come. I just didn’t know it back then. Or I liked to pretend I didn’t anyway.

“She seems sweet,” my mother told me when I came home for Sunday dinner. Looking back at that night now, I realize how much slower she was to set the table. How everything was a little off, but to me, it was just an obligation I had to my mother before I would be leaving to go out and have a good time.

“You didn’t even meet her,” I laughed at my mom. Shaking my head and taking a drink from whatever was in my cup. I leaned back and looked at my father, waiting for him to agree with me.

“Plus she’s the only girl you’ve seen me with.”

“That’s true,” Ma replied and shrugged. “I like the way you two look together,” she added and then looked me in the eyes as she smiled. “Is it too much to ask that you pretend to value your mother’s opinion?”

I let out a small laugh and shook my head. “I’m glad you approve,” I told her. More so just to make her happy than anything else, but it only opened the door for Ma to invite her over for the next family dinner. I had already started coming up with reasons to end it that night.

It was too much. I was young and in my prime and working a job that would keep my appetite well fed.

I was ready