Me: Please I’m sorry.
Me: Meet me somewhere.
Me: We need to work this out.
Me: Please. I need you.
Me: I’m sorry.
I should just type it. Tell him I love him, but I don’t think that’s right. I need to do it in person. Tucking my phone in my pocket, I take off, running across the parking lot to the quad and then to the Bullies house. When I get there though, Jayden isn’t there. Neither is Jace. Running back up the stairs, I run into Markus, who grabs ahold of me.
“Are you okay? I just heard!”
“I’m fine, I promise. He didn’t hurt me,” I say quickly, huffing for breath. “Where is Jayden?”
“Your mouth is busted,” he throws back, but I shake my head.
“It’s fine. I promise, Markus. Please tell me where Jayden is.”
“I don’t know,” he says skeptically. “They have that wedding this weekend. I think they went home.”
Oh, shit, that’s right. They are staying in Nashville for the weekend since the wedding is there. Dropping my head, I know there is no way I’ll be able to catch him before the wedding. I have no clue where he is staying. He was gonna get me the hotel information once he got there because he wasn’t sure where they were staying.
“Why, what’s wrong? I thought he was there and took care of it?”
“He did,” I say as the tears start to fall down my cheeks. “But I’m pretty sure he just broke up with me.”
“What? Why? It wasn’t your fault that dick came after you!”
I shake my head though, wiping my face free of the tears. “No, because I didn’t tell him I love him.”
I then explain what happened, and Markus listens like I need him to. When everything is out of me, the words, the tears, Markus looks at me with his caramel eyes and shakes his head.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I look at him, confused, and he says, “With the McCarthy shit?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Jesus! If he would have raped me, completely understand your worry, but he just beat me up a bit. I’m not a normal girl, remember?”
“True,” he agrees. “But yeah, you done fucked up.”
Laughing without the humor, I nod. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
“You got to fix it,” he reminds me. “Because he makes you a better person, and you do the same for him.”
“Again, Captain Obvious, I know all this.”
“Then why didn’t you just say it?”
Biting into my lip, I look away, not wanting
to admit that was I was too concerned with proving my point and not giving into what I really feel that I didn’t realize that all I had to do was tell him the truth. I love him. With everything inside me.
Looking over at Markus, I shrug. “Because I’m emotionally hindered and I’m too big of a control freak to allow myself to just tell the truth. I am too worried that my dad will be disappointed in me, that he won’t be proud. And I need to stop that. I can’t live for him; I have to live for me. I’m too obsessed with winning, with proving a point, when, really, what’s winning when you don’t have anyone to share it with?”
“It isn’t winning,” he supplies, and I nod.
“Right, and the person I want to share it with, the person who wants to protect me and love me, is Jayden. I fucked up, I’ve been fucking up, and now I need to fix it. Because I can’t lose him.”
Looking at me, he smiles before saying, “See, was that so hard?”