Page 111 of Heart Break Her

“You gonna be okay?” She squeezes my shoulder.

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “But I’ll try.”

Eloise nods and lets out a sigh. “Good because all this talk about Myth has me thinking one thing. I can’t lose you. And I almost did. If you’d done those drugs… I can’t lose my brother, Sebastian.”

She pats my arm and stands up, making her way to the house and leaving me kneeling in her backyard to process what she said. As much as it hurts, as painful as it is, I need to find the strength to pull through to the other side of this.

For Eloise.

For Cassie.

For myself.

34

Cassie

ImissSebastian.Ican practically hear Myth laughing at me from the beyond for just thinking it.

TheSebastian Kane.

Rock god.

Heart breaker.

Life changer.

Troublemaker.

Man.

I miss all of him.

How the smell of his leather jacket lingered on every surface, even if he was only there for a short amount of time. The feel of his lips on me when we were saying hello and goodbye. Simple moments between the bigger ones that somehow held more weight to them.

But most of all, I miss the feeling he stirred deep inside me. He saw the parts of me I didn’t know existed. And for the first time in over a year—maybe even my whole life—I was alive.

I wasn’t just Myth’s sister or my parents’ daughter. Or a girl fresh out of college, ready and nervous to make something of herself. I was me. Cassie Walker, the girl with the pink hair who did things people didn’t expect. And I liked her as much as Sebastian did.

Because I swear, he did like her.

When he stood in the driveway and asked me to stay, it wasn’t for sex, and it wasn’t as his fling. He wanted me near him as much as I wanted to be near him. That’s the fatal flaw with being human. Your brain can tell you what’s right or wrong, but at the end of the day, your heart makes you reckless.

If only he would have been honest from the start. Could we have been more? Could I have handled it?

Picking up Myth’s picture off my dresser, I think back to the day Sebastian was standing in my room holding it. He looked like something had cracked open in space and swallowed him.

Maybe it had. What we’d done and what he blames himself for must have been blurring.

But even if I left him in Denver, I don’t blame him, I don’t blame myself, and I don’t even blame Myth. Watching guilt work in Sebastian’s eyes made one thing perfectly clear—no one could have changed the outcome of that particular night any more than we can change our own fate.

Drugs took hold of my brother, and his addiction claimed him. There’s no changing it, and no taking it back. For me, or for Sebastian.

Blame wasn’t why I left.

I walked away because I’m ready to face my brother’s loss, and Sebastian isn’t. The fact that he kept these details from me proves the immense amount of pain he’s still suffering from. While I’m prepared to heal, I’m not sure if he is. And I’m not strong enough to carry both of our burdens.

Being together ripped open wounds that weren’t quite healed. Instead of spending our time mending them to move on, we festered in them together.

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