But I can’t.
I need to get far away from here, this place which I seem to have a gravitational pull to. But when I look into Cayden’s eyes, I see that it has nothing to do with my surroundings and everything to do with him.
I came back time and time again because I loved him, but look what that love has done. Standing slowly, I will my knees to stop knocking. “Together, we’re destructive. You know it.”
He exhales in defeat. “I know, Peyton, I know, but I can’t stop. I’ve tried, and so have you.”
This isn’t merely about us anymore. Until I can wrap my head around everything he’s just revealed, I need to go. “Well, I’ll just have to try harder.” My heart thrashes about in protest, not wanting to leave him, but I can’t keep doing this…to him.
I was selfish. For these past ten years, I floated in and out of Cayden’s life, destroying any chance he had at living a normal life. I can’t do that anymore. We need to set one another free.
“Don’t do this,” he begs. Storming forward, he grips my upper arms. “It’s not safe with…him out there. That night, when you were drugged…I think it was him.”
I gasp, tears stinging my eyes. “That’s why you’ve been watching me, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he confesses without apology. “He torments us and plays with us until we’re ready to break. And only then will he strike. Look what he did to you! He tried to kill you, and he could have. But it was a sign, a warning of things to come. You know I’m right.”
My silence says it all because he’s right. But I refuse to stay hidden in the shadows. It’s time I reclaimed who I am.
“I-I have to go.”
“Where?” Cayden is desperate, desperate to save me once again. But he can’t save me from myself. The only person who can do that is me.
“There is only one place.” He doesn’t need me to spell it out.
I need to go back to where it all started.