Her eyes met mine, and they shone dark and glassy. I sat up and held her to my chest. Her body convulsed around mine, and I pressed my forehead against hers as I gave in to the pull.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, wrapped around each other, foreheads pressed together, gaze locked. It could have been minutes or years. All I knew was that I never wanted to move. Our bodies fit perfectly together, like a lock to a key. I kissed her, soft and slow. I didn’t want to think past the feel of her skin or the curve of her h*ps or the smell of her hair. But for now, I would settle for lying side by side with her in my arms.
28
Max
I was relaxed and numb and glorious.
Until I wasn’t.
Until the glow faded, and I was assaulted my all the thoughts that my mind had been too preoccupied to think before. His arms were tight around me, secure and comforting and caging all at once.
Sex had never been like that for me. It had always been about bodies and sensations and simplicity. Sex with Cade was confusing. It was adding one plus one and getting an answer other than two. It was more than it should have been, and it threw my world off balance.
Cade got up to go to the bathroom, and I slipped my panties back on, and then went to the living room to hunt for my shirt. Cade’s place was the opposite of mine. He had pictures of friends and family on walls and bookshelves. Those shelves actually had books on them, along with mementos and keepsakes that apparently meant enough to him to bring all the way to Pennsylvania with him. His place felt homey. It felt nice and comforting, just like him.
Unease flitted around my chest, but I pushed it down. I tiptoed back to Cade’s room, and my nerves started to rattle. I stared at the rumpled sheets on his bed and just couldn’t make myself get back inside it. Cade was wonderful. Mind-blowingly wonderful. Tonight had been one of the most intense moments of my life.
But that was the problem.
We’d known each other ten days. I looked at the clock, and it read 3:00 A.M. Make that eleven days, but still . . . eleven days. There at the end, he’d looked at me in a way that no other man ever had. I couldn’t even put into words what that look had done to me.
It wrecked me, completely.
It was so honest and raw that it made the rest of my life feel fake and insignificant in comparison. Everything was changing too fast. Even now, thinking about it, I felt like something in me was disintegrating faster than I could hold it together.
I jumped when Cade’s arms wrapped around my middle. His chest pressed into my back, and he placed a few kisses down the side of my neck. His touch was almost enough to deflate my worries, but they stayed there, lurking at the back of my throat, making it harder to breathe. Even so, my body was at ease with his. I leaned back into his arms.
His lips hovered next to my ear, and he whispered, “Have I told you how gorgeous you are?”
I swallowed. “Not in a few minutes.”
“Mmm . . .” The scruff on his jaw tickled the sensitive skin of my neck and he said, “As long as you know.”
He was too good for me. That much was abundantly clear. He was sweet and thoughtful and generous in every way. He never missed an opportunity to reassure me or compliment me or touch me. I wasn’t used to that kind of affection. I shied away from it in every other part of my life, but coming from him I soaked it up like rain on arid ground.
I was tired of thinking, so I turned in his arms and wrapped myself up in his embrace. His chest was still bare, but he’d slipped on a pair of pajama pants that hung low on his hips. I pressed my cheek to his chest and looked down. Seeing our bare feet facing each other pulled something in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat. The intimacy of this embrace made me panic, but at the same time, the thought of moving out of it was painful.
He tugged me down onto the bed and pulled the covers over us. I concentrated on breathing normally as he slipped an arm over my waist. He reached over me to turn off the lamp beside the bed. In the dark, he pressed a kiss to the back of my neck, and I shivered.
I felt like crying.
I just . . . this wasn’t my life. Things like this didn’t happen to me, and if they did, it never lasted. Girls like me didn’t get guys like Cade.
Maybe it would take a week, maybe less, but I would end up screwing this up. It was what I did. The only thing I was better at than destroying things was singing, and with my behavior today, I was beginning to realize I was in danger of destroying that, too.
More than anything, I didn’t trust myself. With Mace I’d been obsessed with him a few weeks ago. I liked him enough to go through this elaborate scheme just to keep my parents from scaring him off. Then boom, I woke up and couldn’t care less about our relationship.
That was how I worked. Or rather . . . how I didn’t work.
I couldn’t do that to Cade. What if we got together, and I woke up one day and wanted out? I liked him more than I liked myself, so I’d probably end up sacrificing my own happiness to keep from hurting him. It would be just like all the years I played at being Alex to keep my parents happy. But instead of blond curls and cheerleading, it would likely mean kids and a minivan.
I may not have been the most self-aware person in the world, but I knew enough to know that if I let myself care about him, I would sabotage my life to better his.
Or I would sabotage it all just because I could.
Or maybe I wouldn’t have to sabotage it. Cade was obviously getting over that Bliss girl. Now, she . . . she made sense with him in a way I never would. What if being with me was just a phase, an overcorrection after things didn’t work out with her?
How long would it take for him to realize that I wasn’t really what he wanted? And how badly would it hurt when he did?
I felt sick from my stomach to my soul.
I waited until Cade’s breathing evened out, and I was certain that he was asleep. Then I slipped out of his arms and slipped on my shorts. I’d only wanted a little space to think, to breathe. But the minute he was no longer touching me, my blood pumped faster, singing run, run, run with every beat. I looked back at him, the hard lines of his body, the relaxed expression on his face, and I did just that.
I grabbed my heels and my purse and opened his front door as quietly as I could. It was nearly four in the morning. I couldn’t walk home alone in this neighborhood, but I couldn’t stay either. I was minutes away from a meltdown of ugly proportions.
So, I called Spence to pick me up. He lived in Northeast Philly and had a car. Despite the late hour, he answered on the second ring. I sighed in relief at hearing his voice, and tears pricked at my eyes.
Shit.
“Spence, I’m so sorry, but can you come pick me up?”
His voice was groggy, but he didn’t hesitate before he said, “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Where are you?”
I gave him the cross streets, and he told me he’d be here in about ten minutes. I ended the call and pressed the phone to my chest.
I knew what I was doing was awful, but if I was preventing a bigger tragedy did that make it so terrible?
I needed to stick with my intuition. Cade deserved better than me. And I couldn’t give him what he needed. He needed a girl who could commit to him with the same care and complete abandon that he gave her. That wasn’t me. I was broken and patched and missing pieces. I couldn’t give him all of me, because I didn’t even have that. There was a piece of me still on that highway, a piece of me buried with my sister. I’d left shards all over this city, and he didn’t deserve to have to clean up that mess.
And he wouldn’t want to . . . not when the luster wore off and he got a good look at the girl he’d caught. Then he’d see me for what I really was . . . toxic. And he would want nothing to do with me.
I sat at the top of the stairs at the end of Cade’s hallway. I wrapped my arms around my middle. The muscles of my body were tense, once again trying to hold myself together by sheer force. I remember the way his arms had wrapped around me tonight and that time on Thanksgiving when he’d been the one to hold me together.
And I lost it. My vision swam with tears, and I held my breath, like that would keep the tears at bay, too. I shuddered and pressed my face into my knees. For the first time in nine years, the first time since Alex, I couldn’t push the tears down. I couldn’t control them. I cried. I sobbed. The emotions ripped free from my chest, taking pieces of me with it.
It was four in the morning. If I couldn’t cry now, when could I?
So, I let the guilt wash over me, and I said good-bye to something beautiful and terrifying and delicate that I’d held in my soul for a few short hours. I said good-bye to something that should never have been mine.
A door swung open on the floor below me, and laughter floated up the stairs. I tried to wipe my eyes, but I was too far gone and not fast enough. Cade’s friend Milo and a pretty girl were at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at me. I ducked my head and scooted close to the wall so they could get by. The girl walked past me in silence, but Milo sat down beside me.
I pressed my lips together and tried to concentrate on breathing.
“It’s Max, right?”
I didn’t think I could speak without crying, so I nodded instead.
His eyes took in my appearance, and I knew I must have looked like a complete wreck. He sighed. “Did you at least leave a note?”
I looked at him in shock.
“What? You’re out here at four in the morning, crying, with major sex hair. It doesn’t take much to put things together. All I’m asking is if you told him why?”
God, I didn’t think I could feel lower than I already did.
Wrong.
My phone buzzed. Spence.
I knew it was terrible, but I wasn’t changing my mind. I looked at Milo and shook my head.
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
Then I ran, leaving behind the best thing that could never happen to me.
I stayed in bed the next day until the sun was on its way down again.
He didn’t call.
It wasn’t that I wanted him to, but I just thought . . . I don’t know what I’d thought.
He let people go. He’d told me that. He didn’t fight for the last girl, and he didn’t fight for me. If I was honest, a small, terrified part of me had been counting on that. If he came for me, I didn’t think I would be able to say no. And this was for the best. I had to believe that or I’d never be able to get out of bed again.
I was saving us both.
So I kept busy, passing the time as best as I could.
I hadn’t told Mom and Dad anything about “breaking up” with Cade. It didn’t matter anyway. By the time I’d battled off the depression enough to call Mom, they’d already booked both of our flights.
I would tell them something when I got there—he was sick or a family emergency or something. Hell, maybe I’d just tell them the truth.
What did it matter anymore?
I didn’t have that much longer until I left for Oklahoma, and this all came crashing down. The important thing was squeezing in as much rehearsal time as possible before then, especially now that we had to find a new drummer to replace Mace.
Music was what mattered now. The only thing that mattered.
29
Cade