to soften if only just a little bit.
“Okay.” He nods, but I still feel him miles away.
Damn it all to hell!
Why can’t I say it?
Why can’t I tell him I’m in love with him, too? Because I am. As much as it frightens me, I know that this gut-wrenching feeling can only spring from falling in love. So why can’t I just give him what he so desperately wants? Why?
Because the minute I do, he’ll have all the power, that’s why.
I won’t be in control anymore, and that means he’ll be able to hurt me more than anyone ever has. I might act brave and courageous, but when it comes to my heart, I’m a coward, and I know it. I’ve seen what love can do. How it can break a person and leave them in ragged fragments that no glue could ever repair. Love is a deadly virus that kills the best of us, destroys our dreams and our inspirations if we let it. It’s a gun aimed at our chests, and we’re the ones with the itchy trigger finger. Love is a game of Russian roulette, and I, for one, never thought I’d be pulled into play.
That is until Finn Walker showed up at Big Jim’s that night, with bedroom eyes and a crass tongue, making it impossible not to fall like a ton of bricks.
He deserves better, and when he realizes it, he’ll end up leaving, and I’ll be a shattered mess. I can’t let that happen. As much as his pain is drowning me in my own, admitting he has my heart will be the real beginning of my demise.
It’s better to cause pain than feel it.
Maybe the kindest thing would be to end this now. It would be a less cruel alternative, but my selfish heart won’t let go of him. Not when I just found him. One day he’ll leave, either by his own volition or by me doing the pushing for him.
All I can do now is enjoy the time we have together, because the minute he admitted he loved me, he switched on the timer. The countdown has begun and who knows what time is left in store for us.
A week? A month? A year?
Whatever we get, it will never be enough. All I can do is make the precious time we do have, count. Even if that means attending a fancy soiree on the north end of town with all of Asheville’s elite.
I’m pacing back and forth on the paved sidewalk, aggravated I let Finn have his way yet again, and convince me to go shopping after class. I only caved because, if I’m supposed to go to this damn party, the least I can do is look semi-presentable. Like hell I’ll let those entitled Northside pricks make Finn embarrassed for having me at his side. I couldn’t give two shits about any of them, but I won’t make tomorrow night any harder on Finn than it needs to be.
I look at my phone again and realize that he’s late by fifteen minutes. Very unlike him since Finn usually shows up well before the agreed time. He’s always so eager to spend time with me. I’m about to text him, but a soft poke on my shoulder interrupts me. When I spin around, I come face to face with one of Northside’s finest and Ashville’s most prized debutant—Kennedy Ryland.
“You’re Stone, right? Stone Bennett?” she asks with a wide, old-Hollywood smile.
Kennedy’s long, light-blonde curls cascade down her slim shoulders, accentuating her heart-shaped face. All of her screams out privilege and grace—two things I have none of.
“I am,” I reply, cocking my brow up as to why she, of all people, is suddenly talking to me.
Her smile widens even more as she looks me up and down appreciatively, not even being discreet about it, either.
“Hi, I’m Kennedy,” she introduces herself, her hand reaching out to me.
As if I needed an introduction on who Montgomery Ryland’s only daughter is. I think everyone at Richfield knows the dean’s children.
“I know who you are,” I quip back, crossing my arms over my chest, looking every which way around the street instead of giving her the time of day.
However, from my peripheral, I can see that not even my cold greeting has her bright smile wavering in the slightest, which gives Kennedy a Stepford-wives aura about her.
I heard the Ryland twins were sharp as tacks, but maybe her twin, Jefferson, got more in the brains department than