Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,65

lies, burning their way out of my throat. I was already seriously hurt. My heart had been broken the second she hadn’t returned the feelings I’d told her about. But there was no point damaging my ego, and my pride, even further. Closing myself off would have to do.

Is this why Katie had just left all of those years ago instead of breaking up with me in person? Because it was easier than having the conversation, than cutting yourself open and bleeding and then trying to stitch it all back up. How I wished I could do that instead of sitting here being a full-on masochist in front of a green-eyed beauty.

“That’s really how you feel?” I can hear the tears in her throat, see the sparkle of them out of the corner of my eye as they roll down her cheeks.

But I refuse to look at her. I only nod.

“Okay, then. If that’s what you want. We’re done.”

Her words aren’t mad or angry. They’re worse. They’re final. Empty and hollow.

As soon as they leave her mouth, she’s opening the passenger door and fleeing into the night. I almost want to get out, to make sure no one follows her home, but that would be hypocritical.

I didn’t have to worry about her anymore. We were over.

And out of everything that had happened tonight, our demise was the thing cracking my heart into icy, bleeding shards.

35

Presley

He’d dumped me and I didn’t even have the courage to tell him that I was going to stay in Fawn Hill.

I’d been too much of a wimp to tell him that I was going to buy the space for the yoga studio.

And worst of all, I was far too scared to tell him that I love him back when he accused me of running.

Part of the reason Keaton had ended things between us was because I’d been his weakness. His distraction that kept him from fulfilling all the duties of his life. To know that I was the thing that made him reckless that threw his schedule off balance … shame wasn’t a big enough word to describe what I felt.

Keaton Nash was nothing if not a stand-up, responsible, in-charge kind of guy. He thrived on order, and I’d thrown his life into chaos. My personality, my instincts, the way he blew off his normal life to be with me instead … it devastated me that I was the cause of his turmoil.

And to know that Fletcher could have ended up in much worse shape if Keaton hadn’t ignored that third phone call … God, it killed me. My heart physically hurt knowing that just another second wasted, and he could have been gone.

Keaton’s words had hurt, like a burn branding my shame with each syllable. The things he’d said about me being freaked out, about me not wanting to stick around, about our relationship being dead on arrival … they stung so badly because they were true.

But I was at fault too for the way my heart felt now. Like the skin had been flayed off. As if it were a dead machine rotting for spare parts inside my body. The ache I’d been rubbing at in the middle of my breastbone all week was the cause of a spark of joy, of hope for a future, being fully stamped out.

I’d gone to Keaton’s house that night with the intention of telling him that I love him. That I am in love with him. And within a couple of hours, the fire that Grandma had lit under me to tell him how I felt had been completely extinguished.

My heart was broken. What he’d said to me, that we’d been “dead on arrival”? I could feel the lashings he’d doled out on it.

Like everything else in my life, maybe my romance with Keaton was fleeting. All the things that happened to me only lasted for a very short time. I glimpsed happiness or success, and then it was gone. A wisp of a dream, a shooting star gone too soon.

I’d been moping around the store for the last week, slinking behind the alley to walk or drive home a route that took double the time than if I just headed down Main Street. But that would put me in a direct path to spot the vet’s office. And then I’d slow down, press my foot to the brakes, just to see if I could catch a glimpse of Keaton.

And that was pathetic. So I was