I didn’t know how to feel. Satisfied that he finally got what was coming to him? That it was over and I didn’t have him lingering like a black cloud over my head? I sure as hell wasn’t happy.
But I felt nothing. Fuckin’ nothing.
I’d felt nothing but cold since I’d walked out of that hospital room. It had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Hearing her call my name… the choked sob.
Fuck, I wanted to give her everything. A family. A home.
But when I’d seen her on the floor… not knowing if she were alive or dead—my worlds collided. Past and present. Control. Anger. Pain. Grief. It was everything I felt when Emmitt died and what did I do…? I went to an underground fight. I lost control. I broke, and I feared what would happen if we had everything and it was ripped from me again.
What it would do to Savvy.
Logan crouched and picked up a pebble, rolling it between his fingers. “Kite, she doesn’t look good,” he said. “Emily went and saw her and… she said she looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks.”
I closed my eyes and curled my hands into fists as I stared at the river splashing over the rocks. “She still living at Mars’s?”
“No. She moved back to her apartment a few days ago. And working at the dance studio.” Logan stood and tossed the pebble into the river. “Trevor was there when Emily came by.”
I clenched my jaw. “Good.”
“Cut the bullshit, Kite,” Logan barked. “It’s not fuckin’ good. She’s not fuckin’ good. Nor are you. Do you know she dropped the car you gave her at your warehouse? Mars says she doesn’t eat, and Bree, Frankie, and even Greg have been by to see her. You know why? Because you’re over here in Ireland running away from a fight. A fuckin’ fight you need to make, Kite.”
I turned to glare at him. “And what happens when she gets hurt again and the bag isn’t enough? What happens when my kid gets beaten up in school by bullies? What the fuck do you think will happen then?”
“I think you have a good head on your shoulders and you’ll do what you have to.” Logan bowed his head and stared at his feet. “I never told anyone this. But you need to hear it. When Emily was taken… I watched her tied up and hanging like a fuckin’ carcass then whipped. I stood there and watched and did nothing. Do you have any idea what that’s like? And that was day fuckin’ one. The woman I loved begged me to help her and I didn’t.”
My stomach twisted. “You couldn’t.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t. Didn’t. Couldn’t. It’s all the same. I put her through the worst hell imaginable and her forgiving me was at zero percent. But I fought for her. I fuckin’ fought and I never gave up. Because love wins every time, Kite.”
He slapped me on the back. “Stop worrying about the details. Get your ass back to Canada, Kite.”
I watched him walk across the field to where Luke leaned against a tree with his arms crossed.
I don’t know what Logan said to him, but Luke pushed off the tree, and they walked toward the road.
Crouching, I picked up a handful of stones and sifted through them for the flat ones and let the others drop to my feet.
I drew my arm back and whipped the stone across the surface of the water.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five
Six.
“Need to go, buddy.”
The music flowed through me, soft and haunting, as I danced. I didn’t think. The emotions the music evoked moved my body.
Every day I thought it would get easier without him, but it wasn’t. Because every day was one more day I’d lost being with him. But even though it hurt like hell to wake up in the morning and know he was gone, I did it. I wasn’t giving into the pain. I wasn’t giving up on us and I was fighting for me, too.
The music grew darker and louder, the beat pounding through my body. The tears slipped down my cheeks as the story, my story, lived and breathed in the music.
When the song ended, I was on my knees beside the window, hair covering my face, chest rising and falling.
When the music ended, that was when it hurt the most. That was when my heart bled.
I spent as many hours as I could at my new job teaching dance, but no matter what I did, Killian lingered. He was all around me, and I couldn’t let him go.
“Do you ever go home? Or sleep, for that matter?” Ali asked from the doorway. She was the opposite of me, fragile and dainty, the look of a ballerina, which she’d studied for years before switching to contemporary dance.