Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart 3)

Seeing them there like that had ripped it wide open.

Maxon roughed an agitated hand over the hair at the back of is head, flinching with my question.

He’d hauled her out of that hall so fast when he’d seen me standing behind them that I’d almost gotten whiplash. I was sure my achin’ head had throbbed more with the memories of the betrayal he’d meted when he’d broken my heart thirteen years before than with the actual injuries I’d sustained.

Of course, he hadn’t really cheated when I’d gone running all that time ago, unable to stay in this town any longer if it meant I’d have to see the two of them together.

He hadn’t really betrayed me in the common sense of the word.

He’d already told me he didn’t want me. That it was over. That we couldn’t be.

The problem was, my heart had known it had been a blatant lie.

He’d returned to my ER room with so much aggression and anger boiling in his body that I hadn’t been able to see straight. In it, he’d been silent. Raging without sound. Hovering over me like I might up and go missin’.

His terror palpable.

His fear real.

It made all of this so much harder—my need to run to him and ask him to wrap me up and hold me while I held him—at odds with this feeling that made me want to do a little raging of my own.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded again. “Have you . . .” I swallowed hard, barely able to get the words to form on my tongue. “Have you been with her this whole time? Are you still—”

God, I couldn’t even say it. Revulsion slipped across my skin like a sickness. A disease.

Maxon whirled around, disgust and horror gripping his expression. “God, no. Fuck, I would never do that to you, Izzy.”

My face pinched. “But you did. You did it before, and it destroyed me. Destroyed me in a way I’m not sure you fully understand.” I pressed my hands to my chest as if it could stop my heart from bleeding this pain.

Guilt and remorse filled his eyes, and he took a single step my direction.

His energy moved like a shockwave through my room. “I hate myself for hurting you. Hate myself. But I couldn’t keep you, Izzy. It wasn’t right. And I’m terrified that I’m doing it all over again. Dragging you into a world where you don’t belong. You have always been too good for me.”

My head shook with the refusal. “No, Maxon. That’s a lie you’ve always told yourself. One you’ve got to get over. One I’m not going to let you use to turn around and break me all over again.”

I blinked at him, tryin’ to make sense of this. “What . . .” My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips. “Tell me what she was doin’ there.”

His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed, and a blister of guilt moved across his skin. “I thought she was what I deserved, Izzy. A reminder of why I could never be with you. A reminder of why I had to let you go. And fuck . . .”

His upper body angled for me, as if he wanted to reach me, but his feet remained planted on the floor. He pressed his fingertips over his heart. “I wish I could take it back. Every horrible choice I made. But I can’t, Izzy. I can’t take back anything. But you have to know, the second I touched you, I never touched her again. I wouldn’t.” Remorse trembled through him. “I couldn’t.”

“Why, Maxon? Why did you choose her?” My biggest insecurities came flooding out. The feeling of not bein’ enough breaking free.

Agony carved every inch of that gorgeous face. My heart clattered against my ribs.

“I couldn’t stay with you then, Izzy. Couldn’t drag you into the mess I was in. I thought . . . I thought I would end up in prison, too. And even if I didn’t, I wasn’t a good guy. I never would have asked you to live that life. I shouldn’t have brought you back into this disaster now. Seems my heart doesn’t know how to resist you. How to stop loving you.”

His head slowly shook, and I felt the confession before he spoke it. “And yes, I was with her for those years you were away. Not because I wanted her, Izzy, but because she was what I thought I deserved. She was a representation of my shame. She was a penalty for not getting to spend my life with you.”

Tears blurred my eyes. “You saved us. Saved us. How could you ever think you weren’t enough? You were everything.”

The plea broke on the sob that worked free of my throat.

He erased the space that separated us. A storm surge. A tsunami. The impact of him had always been devastating and whole.