Pretend like everything was okay.
Like I hadn’t betrayed my brother and the girl in front of me. Like watching Madison go around as if nothing had happened, as if she wasn’t suffering under the same guilt I was, didn’t infuriate me. Like Savannah and I weren’t breaking.
“And that included getting away from me?” Savannah asked softly, her chest shuddering as she sucked in a calming breath.
Fuck. Fuck, no, no, no. “Savannah—”
“Things have been different.” She steeled her jaw and continued holding my stare, trying to look strong when I knew she was so close to crumpling. “I can feel it. I can see it,” she continued, voice wavering. “I don’t know what’s happening, or what happened—”
“Nothing,” I lied, fear gripping at my throat and freezing me in place as I struggled to think of what to do to make this okay.
To make this right when nothing could.
Her head shook slowly. “Beau, you’re distant. Not just emotionally, but physically.” A weak huff tumbled from her as she gestured to me, as if proving her point. “You’re distracted when we’re together. You don’t—” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and her stare fell away. Blush creeping up her neck when she said, “You don’t touch me.”
At the pain in her voice, my entire being reacted. Rushing for her as my heart wrenched and spirit thrashed.
“That isn’t what I mean,” she said quickly, a sharp cry falling from her lips when I stopped a couple feet away. She blinked up at me, each tear slipping down her cheeks like a cut to my chest. “It’s like you’re trying to escape me. If you want out—”
“Out?” I choked on the word as it scraped up my throat. My heart sank and my veins filled with ice. “Savannah, you’re my world. Why the hell would I want out?”
“I don’t know, but I can feel that you don’t want this anymore.”
“You’re wrong.”
Her head moved in wide, wild shakes before nodding fiercely. “Then, maybe you just want me.” Her voice was so soft, so broken, so defeated that it knocked me forward a step.
Body trembling.
Chest pitching with uneven breaths.
But that haze was nowhere to be found. This? This was pure fear and denial and loss.
I wanted Savannah. I wanted her every day of the rest of my life . . . but I knew from her tone that she meant something different.
“What are you saying, Savannah?” I asked hesitantly.
“I know what it’s like to be your world, Beau,” she whispered, jaw trembling as she continued. “I don’t know what happened, I just know I’m not that anymore.”
“You’re wrong,” I said again as the backs of my eyes burned.
“I think maybe you won’t admit it because you need me. Because I take it away.”
Ice shot across the hollow in my chest, stealing my next breaths as I stared at the woman I loved. As I wondered how I could’ve fucked up so badly with her when she’d been the only thing I’d ever gotten right.
I closed the last of the distance between us and pulled her away from the door. Her chest heaved with a muted cry when I curled my hands around either side of her neck and looked into her honey eyes. Jaw clenched tight when I repeated, “You’re wrong.”
Her eyelids shut and her face pinched with pain and unknowns.
“If you really think I’ve been with you, or that I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, because you take it away . . . then I’ve failed at loving you.”
A sob fell from her lips, her head moving in quick shakes as she looked at me again. “No. No, I—God, I don’t know. You didn’t fail anything, Beau. It’s just . . .”
“I failed you.”
“Beau . . .”
This was a new level of suffering.
It was cold and dark, and I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into it. Drowning with no way to the surface. Not when I was the reason I was being dragged down. Not when this went so far past what I had done—the guilt I was trying to live with.
Finding out the woman I’d loved and worshipped for years didn’t truly know that? Didn’t feel that?
Fuck . . .
I took her in. Her eyes and lips. The angles of her face I’d studied thousands of times before and the way she felt in my hands. My body trembling as I prayed this wouldn’t be the last time I held her.
“If you believe that,” I began, voice rough and thick with worry, “I need you to walk away.”
Her expression fell and her body swayed toward mine.
“You deserve to feel like you’re someone’s world.”
“I do,” she breathed quickly.
“You deserve to know that someone’s day starts and ends with you. That their heart beats your name.”
“I do,” she choked out as new tears raced down her cheeks. “I do—Beau, I know that!”
“No questions. No doubts.” I tried to swallow, but my throat was so damn tight. “If I’m not giving you that, I need you to—”
“Stop,” she cried and reached up to grip my wrists. “Beau, stop. I’ve never questioned us or the way you felt about me until . . .” She blinked quickly, her stare drifting to the side as she thought. “I don’t know, recently. I told you, it’s like you’re trying to escape me, but at the same time, it’s like you’re afraid to not have me near you. And I’ve been trying—” A sob ripped from deep within her, and she released one of my wrists to press a hand to her chest. “I’ve been trying so hard to figure out what’s going on . . . what changed between us. What I did—”
“Nothing,” I assured her. “You’ve done nothing.”
Her head moved in quick shakes as she continued. “And I just kept going around and around, grasping for anything because you wouldn’t talk to me. Then the fight a few days ago . . . when I stopped you, you looked at me in this pleading, shamed way that broke my heart. And everything sorta just clicked.”
“I—fuck.” I wiped away her tears, but new ones replaced them. “There’s nothing you’ve done,” I said slowly, making sure she heard and understood those words. “I’m dealing with my own shit, and I see it pulling you down with me, so I’ve been doing everything to prevent that. But wanting out? Wanting to be with you because you take it away? Jesus Christ, Savannah.”
“Then talk to me. Let me be there for you,” she begged. “Don’t push me away.”
I lowered my forehead to hers. “Never,” I whispered. “Never meant to push you away. Just been trying to protect you.”
“When have I ever needed protection from you? When have I ever wanted protection from you?”
Since what I did could destroy us . . .
But what did it matter when my guilt and worry that Savannah and Hunter would figure it out, or that Madison would end up saying something, was destroying us anyway?
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say, and I hated that it wasn’t enough.
Hated that the truth was trapped on the tip of my tongue, begging to fall.
But even though part of me raged that I owed Madison nothing, I couldn’t do that to her. Because if the roles were reversed? If she told Hunter without giving me any kind of warning? Recovering from that kind of hit would be nearly impossible. I’d never forgive her for that.