Page 204 of Collide
“Maybe,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “But you hurt me first.”
His gaze drops, hands twitching uselessly at his sides—but he doesn’t reach for me.
After a long pause, he straightens his jacket, cold and composed again, like he can button up the wreckage he’s leaving behind.
“If you won’t listen to reason”—his tone is stiff, clipped—“there’s nothing more to say.”
A bitter laugh scrapes out of me. I turn toward the window, so I don’t have to watch him walk away.
“There never was.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
I stand there for a long time, my shoulders shaking as I try to breathe.
Because even though I tell myself I’m making the right choice, some part of me still feels like that little girl, waiting for her dad to show up.
But not like this.
And so, like always, I have to be enough for myself.
I turn back into the apartment, the silence pressing in on me like a weight.
The city lights flicker through the window, distant and cold.
I sink to the floor.
And for the first time since this nightmare started, I let myself fall apart. The sob that tears from my throat is ugly, raw—the kind that feels like it’ll rip me open from the inside out.
I bury my face in my hands, my whole body trembling.
What am I even doing?
Holding onto a man who might break me?
Fighting for a career that feels like it’s slipping through my fingers? Clinging to a family that has never really chosen me?
I press my palms harder against my eyes, as if I can hold it all inside if I push hard enough.
But it still pours out.
Feelings I’ve been holding back since the first headline dropped. Since my dad showed up at my door and spoke life to all the fears I had about Alex. Since I realized that I had let Alex all the way in—and that meant he had the power to destroy me.
God, I miss her.
Mom, what would you say to me right now?
The thought hits me like a punch to the chest.
She would know what to do. She would tell me I’m stronger than this.
But all I feel is tired. So damn tired.
I let my body crumple to the floor in a heap, staring up at the ceiling as hot tears streak down my cheeks.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper into the empty room.
I wish I had her here to say it to. Wish I could crawl into her arms, feel her warmth, smell her perfume, have her tell me that everything will be okay, even if it isn’t.
