Okay, so he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want her after all. Sure, that was a bummer, but it wasn’t the end of the world, right? It wasn’t like she couldn’t get to Wyoming herself if she really wanted to and hey, he hadn’t chucked her out on the street with nothing. She could stay here as long as she wanted and all those personal documents were on the way. Looked like she was going to be able to find her own home too, which had been her dream all along.
So why was she hurting? Why did it feel like she’d just been kicked in the chest?
Because your home is with him and you know it.
Something was sliding along the side of her nose and rolling over her cheek, and when she put her hand up to touch it, her fingers came away wet.
Fuck. She was crying.
Fiercely, Mia wiped her eyes, but the more she wiped, the more tears fell. Pain had expanded behind her breastbone, as if the kick to the chest had shattered her ribs and now the broken shards were digging into her, cutting her.
For so long all she’d wanted was a home, something of her own, somewhere she was safe, that no one could take away from her. And she’d always thought home would be an apartment. Or even a house.
She never thought home could be a person.
Mia took a step back, the couch pressing up against the backs of her legs, and she found herself sitting suddenly in it, her hands covering her face, tears leaking through her fingers, her chest feeling like it was on fire.
The sounds of someone sobbing quietly echoed through the room.
Her.
She shut her eyes, heaving in one ragged breath after another, trying to calm the hell down and get herself back together. But it didn’t work. She felt like she’d been given something she’d never known she wanted until it had been taken away from her.
Him. She wanted him. Not the documents, not the clothes, not the warm bed or the food. Or even an apartment of her own. Right in that moment she would have given them all up forever, if only she could have had him.
Because he was her home. And now he was gone.
Why? What had she done? Why hadn’t he stayed to explain or even to say good-bye?
Pretty much the story of your life, huh? Face it. No one wants you. No one ever did.
Beneath the pain, a raw, jagged anger lurked. Anger at all the people who’d hurt her, who’d left her, who hadn’t cared about her being alone on the streets at thirteen.
Shit, she didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. She was better off by herself, because she was the one person in the whole fucking world she could count on.
Screw the fucking documents. Screw this entire fucking apartment and everything in it. She didn’t want it now. Xavier and all his things and whichever flunky he’d gotten to help her, could go to hell.
Mia scrubbed the tears from her face and stood up, ignoring the pain in her heart.
It was going to take her a while, but if she tried really hard, she could put this behind her, could forget all about it. Forget about him and what he’d done for her. Forget about the warmth of his touch and the safety of his arms. Forget about the blue of his eyes and the sun in his smile. Forget about trust.
Forget about love?
Shit, if that’s what this feeling was then, yes, forget about love. She needed to forget about that most of all.
Mia reached out and grabbed the clothes sitting on the table, carefully taking off the blue beanie and the knife and laying them to the side. Then she stripped off Xavier’s shirt and dressed in her own clothes. They felt weird now, all stiff and wrong, but hey, at least they were dry and clean.
Returning to the bedroom, she pulled out her backpack with all her things carefully stored in it, and slung it over her shoulders.
Then she left the apartment without looking back.
Not once.
* * *
Wyoming was just as he remembered it. Wide-open blue skies and dusky hills, fields stretching out on either side of the long, low ranch house that crouched beneath Black Top Mountain.
His mother’s family had owned it once, before his mother had fallen in love and married Cesare de Santis. Before she’d been taken away from the place where she’d felt at home and made to live in New York, a place she’d hated and had never come to terms with.
But she’d stayed for her husband’s sake and for the sake of her children.
A mistake she’d never come back from.
Xavier stood in front of the huge mantle positioned over the cavernous fireplace, staring at the photos lined up along it. His maternal grandparents, now long dead. His brothers and sister. His father. His mother.
There was one photo in particular, of his mother on horseback with the sun in her hair and a mile-wide smile on her face. She’d looked so happy back then, back before she had to come to New York and changed her whole way of life for the man she loved.