Life After Taylah(69)

“We need to talk,” he rasps.

Those four words have so much meaning.

He steps past me, but I can’t focus on anything else but his words. The words that are never good. They never end well. They break everything. When he turns to me and begins speaking I am still praying, with a pathetically broken piece of my heart that I’m wrong. We have something that is so amazing, so real he wouldn’t just throw it away. He wouldn’t. He promised.

Promises are made to be broken.

“I didn’t call and I’m sorry,” he says, his voice shaky. “I went home to leave Lena, I did, Avery, but she told me . . . she told me she’s sick.”

Sick.

Sick.

He stares at his feet. He can’t even look at me.

“She said she went back to see the doctor after she was released from hospital because of the alcohol poising. They did some blood work just to make sure she hadn’t damaged her liver, things like that, and they found something. She went back to get more tests while I was away—I didn’t know. I got home and she seemed fine, so I came to you. When I got home, she got the call—right there in front of me. She’s got cancer, Avery. It’s not good.”

My knees tremble and I have to reach out and grip the countertop to stop myself from crumbling.

“I can’t leave her, not right now. She needs me around; Macy needs her mother to live, regardless of how I feel. She has no one else. I can’t leave her when she’s in trouble. Please understand, Avery, that this isn’t what I wanted, but I can’t step away.”

My world is spinning; all I can hear is white noise as my life comes crumbling down around me. I know I’m crying, though I can’t hear the sounds coming from my throat. Nate steps forward, cupping my cheeks, his calloused fingers lying so perfectly against my skin. This isn’t how this is meant to go. Through my blurred vision, I see a tear trickle down his cheek. My big, brave man is crying. How can I hate him? How can I?

“It’s not fair what I’m doing,” he rasps, his voice thick with emotion. “How can I expect you to just sit around and wait for me? You’re not a toy, Avery. You’re not something I can just pull out of the closet when I feel like it. You’re a girl, a beautiful girl who deserves everything. You deserve so much more than me. I have to let you go, because if I don’t I’m keeping you from living with the love you deserve.”

No.

My knees wobble and I sink to the floor. My world is vacant and I hear nothing but the sound of my own sobbing. It hurts; it feels like my heart has been torn open and ripped into tiny shreds. My entire body aches from the inside out, every organ, every muscle, every inch of my skin. Nate kneels with me, and I feel his body shake with emotion.

“I’m sorry, Avery. So fuckin’ sorry. Please know that I love you. I fucking love you with everything I am, but I have to do this.”

A broken kiss is pressed to my head. Then he stands and I hear him walking towards the door. That’s when the desperation hits. It hits me like a hurricane swirling in my soul. I push to my feet and I take two steps forward, my arms outstretched, like that’s going to stop him from leaving me. “Please,” I beg, my voice shaking. “Nate, please. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

He swallows, his face so pained . . . so fucking pained.

“I’m sorry, Avery.”

He walks out the door and I run forward, tripping before I make it. I land on the floor hard and fast, screaming with pain and agony as I hear his truck start up. No, no, no, no, no. He can’t leave me. He can’t go. I crawl towards the door, wailing, desperate. I’m crying out his name, begging him not to go. When I hear the car disappear down the street, my entire world crashes around me and I scream so loudly my ears feel like they’re going to explode.

So this is what heartbreak feels like.

~*~*~*~

“Oh, Avery,” Kelly says, rushing in and scooping me off the floor. “What have you done?”

“It hurts, Kelly,” I scream, clutching his shirt as he lifts me. “It hurts so bad.”

He puts his big arms around me, but it doesn’t ease the pain. It hurts so much. It’s like someone has lit a fire in my soul and it’s slowly burning.

“There will never be anyone else like him,” I bellow. “No one. He’s it. He’s all I’ll ever have and want.”

“He’s not yours to want, Avery. He never was.”

“I love him,” I screech so loudly I hurt my own ears. “I love him.”

I don’t know how Kelly found me here, but I knew the minute he lifted me into his arms that he knew. I guess Nate called him—that’s the kind of man Nate is. Everyone else before him. Just the thought of him has a raw sob rising up in my throat and escaping into Kelly’s chest.