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“Are you sure this is the right move? I just mean…you’ve been building your life here. You have a career, a family?—”
“I’m sure.”
My fingers curled into fists as a wave of devastation rippled through me. Tears stung and clawed, neon heat blurring my vision as panic pierced my chest, bending my ribs in half. “No.” My head swung side to side. “No, I’ll go. This is silly. You can’t just uproot your life when I’m the lifeless one. I have nothing keeping me here. No real home, no purpose.” Warm salt trickled down my cheeks as my lips quivered. “Please…let me go.”
Finally, gradually, his face twisted with something other than cool indifference. Pain leaked through, shimmering in his eyes, creasing his forehead and brows. Reed took a step toward me and cupped my wet cheeks in his hands. “I am letting you go, Comet.”
The dam broke inside me.
Breakage tore up my stomach and weaved a splintered labyrinth up my chest until it bulldozed through my lungs and throat. A war cry flew past my lips, agony fused with anger, as I fisted the front of his faded-navy tank, unsure if I wanted to pull him closer or shove him out of my pinwheeling orbit.
“Halley.” Pressing a kiss to my forehead, his lips lingered, parting through a shaky exhale. “I’m sorry. This is just the way it needs to be.”
No.
Lies.
This wasn’t the way; it wasn’t the way at all.
Anger won out, and I shoved him away from me. “This is your solution?” I demanded, vibrating with feeling. All feeling, every feeling. “You’re just…leaving?”
He linked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “I have to.”
“You don’t have to. You’re taking the easy way out.”
Two molten-green eyes pinged back open, flaring with what looked like fury. He stepped forward again, his face inches from mine. “The easy way out?” His tone was as deadly as his stare.
I cowered back but tipped my chin. “Yes.”
A slow nod was his reply as he simmered and churned in my response, glancing down at the blue mat like a prelude to more words that would butcher me into mincemeat.
But he said nothing.
My brows furrowed, and I crossed my arms defensively. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”
He turned away, his hands still interlocked behind his head as every muscle in his back rippled with tension.
“Say it, Reed. Tell me what’s on your mind. Please, enlighten me.” I was instigating him, poking and prodding, but this hurricane of rage was far easier to digest than the chasm of grief threatening to swallow me. “Tell me why you think running away from your problems is better than facing?—”
“Because you’ve fucked me all up inside!” He whirled back around, both hands sliding into his hair and fisting hard. “Do you realize that? One little lie, and you opened up a doorway to hell. You allowed me to let my guard down, to let this goddamn connection seep in, and now I can’t shake it. I can’t shake you. If I had known your real age, I would’ve walked away the second you told me. You fucking cursed me, Halley.”
The tears kept welling, kept falling down my cheeks in trails of vulnerability. “So, this is my fault?” I shot forward, my fingers bruising my biceps to keep my hands from reaching for him. “This isn’t all on me. You’re being weak.”
One eyebrow flicked up, as if daring me to say that again. “I’d rather be weak than wrecked,” he ground out. “And that’s exactly what’s going to happen if we take this any further. We’ll all be fucking wrecked.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. You’re dead wrong if you think you can’t destroy me with a single look,” he rasped. “That’s why I need to go. I need to put distance between us. Thousands of miles of it, before I ruin both of our lives.” Heaving in a deep breath, he pressed his hands together like a prayer and leaned forward, trying to talk reason through the madness. “Tell me what you think is going to happen if we keep doing this. If Tara finds out. Tell me what’s going through that pretty little head of yours, because I can assure you, it’s not what’s going through mine.”
“I…I don’t know,” I answered helplessly. “Maybe you’re underestimating her. Maybe she’ll be fine.”
“I know my daughter. Nothing about this will ever be fine.”
“Maybe it will be. Maybe?—”
“You. Are. My. Daughter’s. Age.” He jabbed a finger in my face like an exclamation point to every word. “I’m sick for even thinking about you like this. It’s twisted. It’s fucked. And I’m completely helpless when I’m around you. Tara is going to be blindsided. She’ll look at you like a traitor instead of friend. Is that what you want? To destroy the one person who took you in—who sees you as a sister—who gave you friendship and love and loyalty when you had nothing?”
I gouged the heels of my palms into my eyes and shook my head. “I don’t want to hurt her,” I sobbed. “But I don’t want to hurt. And this hurts. So much.”