he was on the verge of a panic attack.
His chest had clamped down. His throat had tightened. He’d broken out in a cold sweat. He knew he was wrong to leave Belinda as he had. He knew he was hurting her in a way he couldn’t stand. But he needed to take a full breath, and he couldn’t seem to do it in her presence, near the broken sound of her voice.
So he let himself be a coward. Just like he’d been a coward seven years ago when he ran away to Azalea. He fled before he shattered into pieces. Before he drowned in the tidal wave of feeling.
He’d walked to her house earlier, so he had to walk home. It was dark and cold and damp and miserable, but the brisk air was bracing as he sucked it down. He walked in long, fast strides until his chest had loosened and his vision cleared.
She’d said it was guilt he was running away from.
She’d said he refused to commit because he didn’t want to feel that way again.
She’d made it clear all the excuses he’d been telling himself for years were lies. Nothing but lies. To protect himself from what hurt too much to accept.
He should have died with his family seven years ago.
If he’d been a better son and brother—a better man—he would have.
But he hadn’t been a good man. He’d been buried in work and unwilling to let it go even for a long-planned weekend with his family. So they’d died without him, and he’d been left alone with nothing but a fortune he hadn’t earned and didn’t want.
Sweat streamed down his face and back, despite the chill in the air. His lungs ached with every huff, so he made himself slow down. It was barely ten thirty, but the neighborhood streets of Azalea were empty. Downtown would be too. The town had gone to bed. Only he was still out, walking home, running away from the woman he loved because he couldn’t stand to lose her.
He couldn’t stand to lose her.
He pulled to an abrupt stop at the corner of Willow and Main. He stood frozen for a long time—seconds turning into minutes until his knees ached and his back was stiff. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It could have been a few minutes or a half hour or even longer than that.
Because he was finally letting the tidal wave crash over him, burying him in everything he’d so long held off. He stood in one place on a quiet street corner in the dark, panting and sweating and seeing himself for what he really was.
Hal was right. Belinda was right. He wasn’t lost in a complex tangle of grief and loss and history. He was simply afraid. To love. To live life. To be human. To mess up again. So he kept sabotaging his own happiness because he thought he didn’t deserve it.
Maybe he didn’t deserve it. Maybe he never would. But life was offering it to him anyway. Like a gift or a miracle or benediction.
He turned around and started back. To Belinda. To everything he’d left behind.
After a block, he could see nothing but her face, twisting in pain that he’d caused. He picked up his speed as the urgency propelled him. He jogged. Then ran full out. Until finally he was racing back to where he’d left her.
“IT SOUNDS LIKE HE MIGHT just need some time,” Ria said, her face tight with concern as she sat on the couch beside Belinda. “It sounds like he didn’t end things for good.”
“He did,” Belinda choked out, swiping away tears that kept falling despite her best efforts. “He didn’t say it, but I know it’s over for good.”
She’d texted Ria as soon as Fitz had left, hoping that it wasn’t too late in the evening and that her sister might be able to talk to her on the phone. She needed someone. Ria might be married and have a baby now, but she was still the first one Belinda thought to turn to.
Instead of talking on the phone, Ria had come right over, and Belinda had spilled out everything in a few minutes of broken ramblings.
“Maybe,” Ria said, reaching out to rub Belinda’s arm. “But at least give him a chance. He loves you. I’m sure he does. I get that he’s got a lot of emotional baggage, and that can be really hard to deal with. But I just don’t see him