Page 45 of You are the Reason

Breaking away he looks at me, and I know exactly what he’s going to say. A sob escapes me, but his eyes are pleading. “Please, do this for me.”

Everything inside me is screaming‘no’, telling me to walk away now. But over the past nine months this man has saved me from myself, and if this is what he needs to be able to save me once more, to let me walk away from his love. I can do this. I nod. So he picks me up and I wrap my legs around his waist.

Deep blue eyes drink me in while his hands lovingly explore my body. We don’t speak. Our bodies communicate without the need for words; expressing the reality that neither of us are willing to face.

Resting my cheek against Tanner’s chest I listen to his heart rate begin to slow. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I fight to keep my eyes open. ‘Don’t go to sleep, Kinsley’the little voices in my head say, with every ounce of my being I try to listen to them. Because I know when I wake, nothing will be the same.

* * *

Waking up this morning, the reality of last night comes crashing down. My whole world has flipped upside downagain,but this time I was the one to flip it. The thought sinks deep down into my stomach where it turns to nausea, sweat prickles on the back of my neck and my heart rate picks up. He is gone. The bed is now cold in the spot where I had fallen asleep in his arms. The only thing left to show me that last night happened is the spare key for my apartment left on the pillow;his key.

I take a shaky, deep breath in. My eyelashes are lumped together from tears mixing with my mascara, and my makeup is smeared across my pillow.

To be able to get through this, I need to be strong. I would never be able to get through this by looking into eyes where I saw a reflection of the pain that I am trying so hard to bury. I take another breath, this one less shaky than the last, preparing myself to face this new reality. A reality that no longer includes what I considered my healthiest escape. A drug – one I have become addicted to.

The door downstairs opens abruptly and slams shut, I flinch at the sound. Feelings of hope and confusion stir within me causing my stomach to flip.Tanner left his key, I remind myself. Whoever it is, they are in a hurry. I can hear footsteps taking the stairs two at a time. I should be scared after all that has happened over the past few weeks, but fear is the one emotion I’m not feeling. If Lance Harding, George Watson or his goons are here,come and fucking get me;I’ve got nothing left to lose.

“Tanner?” I whisper, holding onto my last thread of hope. I don’t even open my eyes, they’re scrunched shut to hold back any tears that are trying to escape. All the reasoning and strength I had just instilled in myself shatters. If he was to wrap his arms around me now, I wouldn’t have the strength to push him away. Not again.

The bed dips and I’m being wrapped up into a hold I know all too well. The scent of freshly mowed grass and cinnamon intoxicates me.

“No,” I whimper. “No, no, no.”

All the emotions I have been suppressing since I woke up rise to the surface and the pep talk I gave myself fades away. I’m sobbing. I thrash and I kick. But he doesn’t let go. My breathing turns to gasping for air and a bead of sweat drips down the back of my neck; the feeling resembles a blade slicing my skin.

I haven’t had a panic attack for three months. Not since the day Tanner found me.

“Dammit, Meadow, breathe,” Jesse pleads.

“H—he knows,” I try to explain to Jesse.

“Shh,” he soothes. “I know.”

Once again, Jesse is here picking up my shattered pieces. This time it’s different though, I don’t know if Jesse will be able to put me back together, not without the missing piece. The one I just willingly gave away.

Chapter Thirty

Jesse

The sun beams brightly through the double doors that lead out onto Kinsley’s balcony. “Jesse,” she rasps, her throat dry from refusing to stay hydrated. “Close the curtains — please.”

“I’ll close the curtains and let you rot in the darkness, ifyoutake a shower, drink some water and eat —” Softening my voice a little I add, “— I’ll go and get you literally anything.” She has the blanket pulled up over her face; with one swift tug I pull it off of her and onto the floor. “I’m not tiptoeing around you anymore, Kins — that was yesterday. Today we are doing things my way.”

“I c-can’t do it, Jesse,” she sobs. “I’m — I, I’m so tired.”

Seeing her this way is like a bullet to the chest, but I refuse to let her spiral any deeper. I’ve witnessed her rockbottom and it isn’t a place she will ever visit again, not if I can help it.

“Why do you keep pushing people away when they start to see all of you? Is it because you’re scared that you’re too much? Do you think that you’re too broken?”

I sit down next to her on the bed. With the blanket on the floor and nowhere to hide, she has curled into a ball, facing away from me.

“You can’t keep running for the rest of your life, Kinsley. Each time you break into a thousand pieces, who is putting you back together?” I pause, waiting for a response. When I get nothing, I lay down beside her and mold my body around hers, being the big spoon. Then I whisper in her ear, “Every damn time it’s me — I piece you back together and I would do it for the rest of my existence, but each time I piece you back together, I lose a piece of myself.I lose it toyou, Meadow.”

Kinsley stays silent, her breathing evening out and the sobbing subsides. A few moments later she laces her fingers through mine and pulls my arm tighter around her; the only acknowledgement I’m going to get. I lay there with her, allowing my own eyes to close too. So much has happened over the past week, none of it was supposed to lead to this. If I’m honest with myself, I really wanted to be wrong when I told Tanner she would react this way, he is the only guy she has ever let in this deep, and he’s actually a good one too.

Little does she know, he doesn’t plan on going anywhere. I have to stop myself from laughing at the thought. One, because now is not the time to be laughing and two, because I think Kinsley has actually fallen asleep and I don’t want to wake her.

He is kinda obsessed with her in a ‘if you touch her, you’ll die’ kind of way but the scary thing is, I’m not sure how far he would actually go on that statement.Stop it Jesse, he wouldn’t actually kill someone …But how would I know? He is moody enough, his side-eye alone nearly killed me the first time I met him.

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