Beyond Broken(73)

Maddie shook her head, suddenly very tired. "It was a mistake coming here."

Caleb reached out to take her arm, like he was afraid she'd leave. "I shouldn't have left yesterday, Maddie. I need you to know that."

"It doesn't matter anymore," she murmured, looking up at him. "Let's just forget it, okay?"

Whatever he read on her face made his grip tighten. "It does matter and I won't forget it. That would be easy for you, wouldn't it? To just pretend it never happened?"

She snatched her arm away. "I'll do what I have to to move past whatever this is," she said, gesturing between the two of them. "I've tried with you, Caleb. I've ignored things that I shouldn't have. I've let things roll off my shoulders when I shouldn't have. I've done a lot of things these past two weeks that I shouldn't have. But now, it's over. And I'm going to put it all behind me because I have to."

Maddie was surprised by the anger on his features. "So, that's it then? You decide that you're done, so it's all over."

"Just yesterday, you wanted me gone, Caleb. You wanted to scare me away. That part of you, that reflex to push me away, will always be there. And I've just recently realized that you told me the truth. You'll never be able to fully trust me. And without that, what's the point? I should've listened to you and that's my fault."

Caleb paced a few feet away and then returned, looking at everything but her. It hurt to tell him these things, but she thought that they both needed to hear it. Because of his past, Caleb would never be able to let her in completely. A part of him would always be detached because he wouldn't want her too close. It was understandable, of course, but did she really want to pursue something with him knowing that, when her heart was already too invested? She just wished that she'd realized it sooner and maybe she could've saved herself a fraction of this pain. 

Caleb didn't say anything when he thrust his hand into his back pocket and pulled out her gift cards. Maddie had forgotten all about them for a moment and when he placed them into her hands, she stared down at them, her brow furrowed. They seemed so silly sitting in her palm and she deposited them in her purse without a second glance.

When she looked back at Caleb, his features were drawn. His voice was gravelly and rough when he said, "I was angry with you yesterday, but it wasn't a fraction of the anger I felt for myself. I never wanted to hurt you, Maddie. Don't think that what happened between us was just because I wanted to fuck you. It wasn't about that. I just couldn't understand why someone like you would waste something like that on me."

The honesty in his voice broke Maddie's heart because she knew that he believed it. He thought that she'd 'wasted' her virginity on him. Her mind drifted back to the night she'd stayed with him when he'd been drunk. In the bathroom, he told her he was tainted. Maddie could see now that he believed it.

"It was my choice," she whispered, staring up at him when tears started to fill her eyes. "I wanted to, and so I did."

It didn't change anything between them. Caleb would always hold a strange part of her heart and perhaps she'd never know why. It was just something about him. If he was different, if she was different, maybe it would've worked out between them. At the moment, they were just two puzzle pieces that wouldn't fit.

Caleb saw the realization on her face, that it wasn't meant to be, and nodded, blowing out a breath. Maddie leaned up and Caleb met her halfway and their kiss was slow and soft. She breathed him in, memorizing the scent of him, and then she pulled away.

"Bye, Caleb," she whispered, pressing one last kiss to his cheek. She turned away and walked as fast as her heels would carry her to her car, where she finally allowed the tears to fall fast and hard.

Heartbreak sucked. And hers had just shattered like glass.





TWENTY-SIX





Three weeks passed and Caleb's mood only deteriorated. His men at the garage knew to steer clear of him. Even Brian gave him a wider berth than usual and Peter didn't even make eye contact anymore.

It had been a couple weeks since he'd last seen his friends as well. But this black mood, whatever the hell was wrong with him … he couldn't shake it. He'd tried running longer than normal, pushing himself past his daily five miles until his whole body ached every night. He'd tried throwing himself into the restoration he was working on. He'd even tried visiting his uncle's grave, wondering if what he was feeling was in relation to the aftershocks of his death.

Nothing worked. And at the end of the three weeks, Caleb knew it all had to do with Maddie, that frustratingly beautiful brunette whom he couldn't go an hour without thinking about. He'd flipped to her contact in his phone over a dozen times, thumb poised over the call button. He'd debated texting her more times than he cared to admit. Everything in him screamed to contact her.