Page 59 of Savior Complex
I’ve known Brayden all of a couple of months, and I never had him. But losing him is like watching the stars go out, one by one, knowing they’re never coming back.
My mind drifts to that wish list I created all those years ago. Was it him? Did I really conjure him up? Or did I know him before I’d met him?
“Stop being so stupid,” I mutter to myself. It was just a list. A game. An idea created from a fictional story, and I believed it like a fucking child. Now, look where it got me—alone, which feels like forever, all because of some idiotic list.
I end up at the ocean, stopping at a café on the way for a cup of coffee and a croissant. I’m still not hungry, but no man is going to make me starve. So I eat the bread that feels like sawdust in my mouth, washing it down with a tasteless latte, watching the waves roll in through blurry eyes as my heart breaks all over the sand.
My whole life has led me here, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. My mom taught me I was nothing more than my body, and that wasn’t even good enough. Every pound I gained increased the contempt with which she looked at me. When boys started noticing, she called me a whore.
When I was raped, she acted like it was my fault.
This family is one big lie, and I’m just a part of it. Jordy and I had just made peace, and I go and take the one thing that’s sacred to her. Even now, I’m trying to excuse what happened. She pretty much told me they’re having issues. He confessed he doesn’t love her. But he’s still with her, and that’s what makes this so wrong. Even if he broke up with her, I couldn’t be with him.
Because then every lie my family has believed about me would be true, and their reasons for hating me will be justified.
So, I’ll live this new lie—that I’m not in love with Brayden Winters, and I don’t wish his ring were on my finger or his children in my future.
I stay at the beach for a few hours, even though the autumn chill keeps me from soaking up the sun rays. Even though my coffee has grown cold and a few seagulls are fighting over my breakfast scraps, I stay long enough that when I hear footsteps behind me, I know it’s him.
“How did you find me?” I ask when Brayden sits down beside me.
“I smelled your perfume on the wind and followed it here,” he says, placing a wrapped-up sandwich in my hands.
“You can’t say things like that to me.” I turn to him, hating how even now, I am so utterly attracted to him. His blue eyes consume me, and I want to crawl into his arms and soak up his body heat while inhaling his rich smell.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He looks out at the ocean, and I keep the sandwich unopened in my lap. By the smell, I can tell it’s barbecue. It reminds me that I actually do love food, especially barbecue. But who can eat at a time like this? “What are you doing out here?” he asks, his eyes remaining on the waves.
“Avoiding people,” I say. He gives a light laugh, then nods in agreement. “And seeking answers.”
“Did you find any?”
I shake my head no. “Just confirmation that once again, my destiny is to lose.”
He turns to me, his hand finding my leg. I want to pull away, to tell him that doesn’t belong to him. But who am I kidding? He owns every part of me.
“That’s not—”
“True? Yes it is, Brayden. It’s the only way I can explain how I could fall for an impossible man, knowing damn well I’m going to get burned in the end.”
“You fell for me?”
For just a moment, amidst all these impossibilities, I let his question open me to hope—that he will make me a promise he won’t back out of. That he’ll choose me, consequences be damned, because we were meant to be with each other.
I nod. Our eyes connect, and I can feel the electricity in my every pore, feel it coursing red hot through my veins. I search him, pleading silently for him to say the words, and we could run away together. Maybe stay in Texas and escape all our issues, or go back to Sunset Bay and face the truth—because the connection between us is stronger than a Texas tornado or a California wildfire.
“I can’t be with you,” he finally says, and I look back to the ocean. He turns my head to him again. “But I’m not ready to let you go, and I know that’s so fucking selfish of me. I have no right to even ask something like this of you. But I’m asking anyways.”
“Asking something completely unfair,” I say, my eyes brimming with tears. And fuck if I don’t lean into his hand when his thumb brushes the tears across my cheek.
“Completely unfair,” he agrees. “And if you say no, I’ll respect your wishes and never ask it again.”
I close my eyes, bracing myself for the disappointment, even though there’s only one answer bursting inside me.
“Stay with me this weekend,” he says, “not as my employee, and not as my friend. Stay with me as my lover. Let me make up for all the things I’ll never be able to give you in this lifetime. Let me try to give them to you now, while we have time. We could even go away, leave all of this behind so we don’t miss a single moment.”
“But the conference,” I say.
“Fuck the conference.”