Page 10 of The Heartbreak List

“Your bucket list?” She tips her head to one side.

“It doesn’t matter.” I hold out a hand to her. “Let’s get you home.”

With her hand tucked into mine, I lead her back inside the building. We bypass the club where the music is still pumping, and step over a drunk on our way down to the ground floor. Shoving open the exit door, I draw her onto the pavement and start looking for a cab.

It takes a few minutes until one crosses our path, and I step out and hail the driver. When it pulls up to the curb, I open the door and safely stow her inside. I don’t follow her in, though the urge to see her to her door is strong. Her fiancé probably wouldn’t appreciate that, despite my best intentions and her adventure tonight. Still… it makes me fidgety to walk away. “Are you going to be okay from here?”

She rearranges the sides of the jacket over her lap. “Yeah. I really wasn’t going to jump. I just…”

“I get it.”

She smiles softly. “Thanks for listening to me. Thanks… for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” I step back and close the door. Tap the roof once I’m clear and shove my hands in my pockets as the car departs. I get the strong sense that I’ll never see Indy again, and while that’s probably for the best, I can’t help feeling like she’ll stick in my thoughts for a long time to come.

Chapter Four

Indy

Heelsinonehand,I shut the door to the condo as slowly and as quietly as I can. It’s way past midnight, and my phone was dead when I pulled it out in the cab. It shouldn’t have been, but I ignored a lot of calls while I was up on that ledge.

The latch clicks into place with the volume of a child tattling in the otherwise silent room. It makes me jump and my shoulders climb to my ears. My heels fall to the floor with athud, thud. Damn it, there’s no way I didn’t wake up Gray.

The light overhead switches on. “Indy?”

I grimace as my eyes adjust to the light. “Sorry, Gray. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Wake me?” He’s gorgeous in black sweatpants and not a stitch else. His blond hair looks like he’s put his fingers through it a lot. It’s furrowed back and forth into clumps that stand on end. He drinks me in before he drags a hand up over his face. “Wake me? I haven’t slept. Do you have any clue what time it is?”

“Uh, well…” I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s nearly four. In the morning. Shit. “I didn’t realize.”

“Where were you?” He marches across the room and wraps his hands around my upper arms. He’s not rough, but there’s tension in his muscles. In his jaw. His palms slide down my arms. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? How worried we all were?”

“I’m sorry.” I reach up to shove my hair back. I am sorry, and that’s not enough, but it’s all I have. I’ve never walked out on family dinner before. Never not answered my phone for hours. But everyone was looking at me with those long faces.

Gray and my mom were talking about the new treatments that she’s been researching on Google. And EJ was so quiet and wouldn’t look at me at all. My dad kept having to leave the room to pull himself together.

I couldn’t breathe. It hurt too much. And when my mom started telling Gray about how much success one of the trials had been having and that I could be well on my way to recovery in time for our wedding, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

We were all in that hospital room when they gave me my prognosis. The chances of anything working for me are too slim to grasp onto. Gray is going to lose me. My family is going to have to say goodbye. Everything is crumbling around me, and I can’t even confide in my best friend because America is in the UK. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the tumor. She would have stayed, and I couldn’t let her lose her future along with mine.

So I made my parents promise not to tell anyone. Not America or my aunt and uncle. Not yet. Not until I work out how to keep her from feeling guilty about being away.

I have never felt so out of control.

“You’re sick, baby. What if something had happened to you?” His posture is rigid and his neck cords when he bunches his jaw. “What if you took a turn?”

“I didn’t.” I take his jaw in my fingertips. “I needed to be alone. I needed time to think. Nothing happened.”

I don’t tell him that I stood on top of the building where my dad used to have his office, where when I was a kid I used to daydream about what my life would be, wondering what it would be like to take my fate in my own hands. Like deciding the time and the destination is a choice I have the power to make.

I don’t tell him because he’ll think I was going to jump the way Theo did when he stumbled upon me tonight. Not that it was ever an option. I don’t want my life to end in six months let alone now.

Gray will worry even more, if I try to explain. Become that much more protective. He’ll want to hear all about Theo too, and I have no explanation for why I spent my night opening up to a stranger instead of him.

“But something could have happened.” He draws breath and releases it. “You could have been hurt, Indy. And I can’t bear it.”

His shoulders start to shake with tiny tremors as he drags me into his embrace. He engulfs me, his body collapsing around mine. He’s trying so hard to convince us both that things aren’t as bad as they are, but deep down he knows that he’s going to lose me. At some point he’ll have to accept it. And so will I. Somehow.

---