Page 52 of It Happened Again

Crossing his arms, his white t-shirt strained around his muscles as he stood there. Brooks was a man painfully unaware of how attractive he was, especially in the faded denims he probably owned and washed for years. His eyes glared at me from under a ball cap sitting backwards on his head.Oof.

Looking like that, even I had to wonder why I was sacrificing myself to the work gods when I could be home in his arms.

“Tell me this is your last night of masochism, Maisy,” he seethed. “I know you’ve been here every night, burning the candle at both ends. It has to stop.”

I pleaded with him. “It will. Tomorrow is the big event. I’m almost done. J-just tightening things up.”

“Maisy. You need to rest before tomorrow. You look like your brain hasn’t shut down in five days. How much caffeine are you running on right now?”

I pushed my glasses up my nose; my eyes had become too red to wear contacts the past few days. “Brooks, I have one shot to prove I deserve this. I can’t afford to stop now.”

His jaw flexed. “And what? You think if you don’t go full throttle, they’ll see you’re not good enough?”

I stood, arms crossed, mirroring him. “Don’t do this.”

“You know I believe in you. But what good is all of this if you’re running yourself into the ground?”

“You don’t understand,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “You wereborninto a different world, Brooks. I wasn’t. I don’t get do-overs. I don’t get the benefit of the doubt. I can’t throw money out there and create my opportunities.”

The hurt on his face made me instantly regret it.

He nodded once, quietly. “Right.”

“I didn’t mean?—”

“It’s okay. You think I don’t understand you, but I do.” He dropped his arms and leaned one against the desk. “I’m only trying to help because I love you.”

“I love you, too. But that’s why you need to leave me alone and let me do this,” I grumbled.

We stood in silence for a beat.

He scoffed. “Leave you alone?”

My anger got the better of me, like intense lava through my veins set to blow. “Yes. Leave, now. If you only knew the huge list of things I need to get done before tomorrow night, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Maisy, I have offered help, done sweet things for you to keep you sane. I have done nothing but be your biggest supporter through this. But all you want is to be left alone?”

“Oh, my God. What do you not understand? This is exactly like our last night of Spring Break, when you begged me not to go on the ship away for a year. I tried explaining to you then that if you cared for me, you’d let me go. So I’m telling you now, if you love me, then let me go. Let me get through the next twenty-four hours and then I’ll come back to you. I just need to put thisSymposium behind me, then I can focus on you and the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, sure. You might come back. But there will always be something else, won’t there? Another project? A crisis? An opportunity?” He shook his head.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Brooks? Should I just quit and give up? Have no ambition at all?”

“You wouldn’t quit even if I asked.” He took a deep breath and stepped away a few paces. “Okay, Maisy. I’ll leave you be. When you’re done, come find me. I might still be around.”

“Brooks…” My heart sunk as I watched him saunter away, and then the most terrible ache hit me. I could hardly breathe. I turned and locked myself into the sensory room, calling upon everything I’d poured into this experiment to help me calm down.

Because I just pushed the best man ever out of my life.

19

BEST BUDS

BROOKS

I didn’t remember walkingout of Orion. Not really. One minute, Maisy was telling me to leave—with that same desperate fire in her voice I’d heard years ago on the island—and the next I was pounding on Archer’s front door like a man trying to break down the fiery gates of eternal hell.

The echo of my fist against the steel of his loft next door to mine reverberated in the still of the hour, but I didn’t care if I woke the whole damn building. My chest hurt, my throat burned, and somewhere inside me, that fragile thread of hope for Maisy and I had just snapped.

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