With shaking hands, I almost throw my phone when it pings again. The absurdity of my entire world crashing down around me feels too overwhelming. I’m too hot, too angry, too miserable.

“I just want to go home.” There’s a finality in the statement and it feels like razors at the back of my throat.

“Stop,” Mason commands me as he slows down at a crosswalk. “Just take it easy.” His entire demeanor changes to something placating, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. It only makes me angrier.

“No, I won’t stop. What do you want from me, Mason?”

A part of me is hoping he really is my knight in shining armor. Part of me wants to be weak. I want him to solve all my problems and just crawl into his bed every night, moving on to a new life and leaving the old one in shattered pieces behind me.

I know it’s wrong. It’s giving in and denying my responsibilities. But God, I want it. My heart is suffocating, hoping for him to say just the right things to convince me to be his, to forget everything else. Just like he has from the first night I met him. “What is it that you want from me?” My voice shakes.

“Jules.” He says my name and looks at me with a gaze I don’t understand.

“Just tell me right now, what do you want?” I swallow the spikes growing in my throat, but they don’t move. They only grow larger and sharper and make the words scrape as they leave me. “I can’t give myself to you right now unless—”

“Unless what?” Mason asks so quickly he cuts me off. His reaction makes the pain that much deeper because I don’t have an answer.

I can’t give myself to him unless this is forever. Unless I can trust him but right now I can’t trust anyone. The harsh reality is what truly does me in. I don’t trust anyone anymore. I don’t want to love anyone anymore.

I can’t breathe as I take off my seat belt. My townhome is only a few blocks away. My shelter. My sanctuary and my grave. My hands shake as the seat belt pulls back, hissing and hating me just as much as I hate myself.

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

I unlock the door and push it open. A car drives by close, but I shut the door quickly, avoiding Mason’s reach for me. His fingers brush against my back as I get out.

“Jules!” Mason calls after me. I cross the lane, the other driver beeping and holding down his horn. Go ahead, hate me too.

The sound of a door opening alerts me to the fact that Mason is out of his car, leaving it parked in the middle of the road and already holding up traffic. “Jules!” he screams but I keep running. The horns don’t stop and it’s not lost on me that what I did was wrong.

I rush past the onlookers and ignore the dirty looks and stares. My shoulders rise with a heavy breath. I need to go home. Tears stream down my face. I need to take care of myself and figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life.

Tires screech and make my head throb as Mason drives alongside me now, slow and causing more traffic to build up.

I ignore Mason as I whip open the iron gate. I don’t stop until I’m safe inside my house, my back to the hard door, my body shaking and my heart hammering.

I hate myself for running from Mason.

But this is reckless distraction.

I cover my mouth as another sob leaves me, slowly falling to my knees on the floor.

He’s a good man and he deserves someone better than me.

Someone who doesn’t have all these problems.

Someone who can fall for him freely and be with him openly.

I sag against the door, letting it all out, still hoping he’ll come bang on the door and plead with me to explain. I can’t be this person, though. It’s better that he doesn’t.

It’s the way we both knew it would end. I envisioned it would be him leaving me though, not the other way around. I take a shuddering breath, feeling exactly how I should, like shit. Not that any of it matters.

It was never meant to be. That’s all there is to it.

Mason

Seventeen. I called her seventeen fucking times. It hurts worse knowing she left me for something other than the one reason she should. Knowing that I couldn’t keep her on my own. I held on too tight. It’s my own fucking mistake.

But I saw what I could do for her.

What I could do to her.

And that made me feel … something other than this. This fucking hate that I have brewing inside of me.

What the hell did I expect? I expected to keep her. For her to learn to love me. For that to cancel out what I’d done.

The ice clinks in my glass as I grab a bottle of Macallan single malt.

No reasoning or any amount of logic justifies why I feel betrayed and alone. Not a damn explanation can leave me feeling as though this is something that doesn’t need to be mended. The liquor sloshes in the bottle as I read the label, my fingers playing with the seal.

My father gave me this bottle as a gift when I started the company with Liam. When I told him I was going into business for myself, but still doing what I loved. I felt so much pride that day. My breathing quickens and my grip on the bottle tightens.

Relax. I grit my teeth, feeling an uneasy tightness settle through my body.

Jules was a sweet distraction; how fucking ironic. She pulled me away from reality. She made me feel like I had time. Like I had a choice.

I toss the seal onto my sideboard buffet, opening the bottle and not bothering to appreciate the rich scent before pouring it into the glass.

If my father were here, he’d give me hell for drinking it over ice.

“But that bastard’s not here,” I sneer under my breath. “No one is.” The last thought leaves my chest feeling hollow. I take a long drink of the whisky that flows so easily. Burning and traveling through my chest, down deeper and stirring in the pit of my stomach. My head still tipped back I take another and finish the damn thing, the ice frigid against my lips. I slam the glass down a little harder than I should and let the liquor hit me.

It takes too long and I find myself gazing straight ahead to the family portrait sitting on top of the buffet. This room, the dining room, is the only room in the whole place where there’s a picture of anyone.

The rest of the house is devoid of anything truly personal. But what do I really have that’s personal anyway? My lacrosse stick and all those fucking uniforms stayed at my parents’ where they belonged. I’m sure they were thrown away long ago.

I pour more of the whisky into the glass, feeling my breathing slow as my body sways and I remember the first day I walked in here.

I’d just gotten all new clothes, all new furniture, all new everything. This home was the start of the professional version of me. All that was in the cardboard box I was holding were a handful of old tee shirts and a few postcards from a friend of mine in Germany I’d met after I graduated high school and got my first job in construction. We’ve lost touch since then.

I take a sip, listening to the ice rattle against the glass. The whisky sits on my tongue and I press it against my teeth before swallowing. All the awards I’ve won are in my office. Framed and arranged just so on the wall.

My gaze drifts back to the portrait of the three of us. I’m standing between the two of them in it. I don’t look a damn thing like her, like my mother. I’m the spitting image of my father. Mom’s smile is soft, but her eyes are what sparkle. She was so expressive. Soft spoken, but she made what she said count.