Page 202 of Broken Saint
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Colt. I know you better than that. You should be fighting. I’m here to fight with you. We all are. Ella would be too if you’d give her the chance.”
“She’s better off elsewhere.”
He shakes his head, the anger ebbing away in favor of pity.
Unable to look at it, I lower my gaze to the battered floor beneath my feet.
When he speaks again, his voice is softer, although still angry. “She loves you, Colt. She’s always fucking loved you.”
His words cut right to my core. I swear, it would hurt less if he just pushed a knife straight through my already fucked-up heart.
I want to refute his words, but he doesn’t let me.
“And you love her too. I know you do. You’ve loved her since the day you first met her, just like I have Peyton, and Kane has Letty. You’re just too much of a fucking pussy to trust her with your heart.”
“This isn’t about me or my heart. This is about her. I’ll break her heart, Luc.” His eyes open impossibly wide at my words. “I’ll fucking break her. I can’t do that to her. Not again.”
“Break her heart? Are you for fucking real, bro? You’ve been doing that for fucking years. The fact she’s even here and giving you a second chance is a fucking miracle. She wants this. Shewants you. She doesn’t give a shit about whether you’re playing football or what dark ghosts linger in your closet. She loves you.”
“But what if it’s not enough?”
A bitter laugh tumbles from his throat, the pity in his eyes only getting more potent.
My stomach knots and my hands tremble as I try to contain the emotion that wants to erupt from me.
“And what if it is?”
52
ELLA
Letty’s sympathetic eyes hold mine, but as much as her support means to me, I can’t take it any longer.
I don’t want everyone to look at me like I’m this broken little thing they don’t know what to do with.
I know they don’t mean it. They’re my best friends. My family. All they want to do is help, to do anything in their power to make it better.
But therein lies the problem.
There is nothing they can do.
There is nothing anyone can do.
I’ve felt pain before, time and time again. But none of it compares to this.
The tight ache in my heart right now is all-consuming.
I stare down at my hands, fighting to pull in every breath my lungs need.
My eyes scratch with every blink, sore from crying more tears than I thought possible. My chest aches from the sobs, and my muscles burn with exhaustion.
I can’t remember the last time I got any decent sleep. Every time I do eventually drift off, all I see is him. The dreams of the good times are just as painful as the nightmares.
Nothing I do relieves the unrelenting pressure on my chest.
I feel like I’m dying. Like my body no longer wants to continue functioning.
It sounds dramatic, I’m aware of that. But it’s honestly how it feels.