Page 41 of Broken Trails
“If you say so.” Her arms cross over again.
“Guess I’ll have to come say hello sometime.”
“Not needed.”
I grin. “Yeah, but I’m already having separation anxiety from her.”
She huffs out a breath. “Then why didn’t you just keep her?”
“Because I think she was meant to find you.”
That makes her pause. She looks at me properly now, like maybe she didn’t see that answer coming. “Goodnight, Michael.”
With a nod, she gets in, starts the engine, and just like that, she’s gone, taillights disappearing into the dark. And for reasons I can’t quite name, I stay put, hands buried in my pockets, staring at the empty space she left behind.
16
Born Without A Heart - Faouzia
The sunlight creeping through the curtains is too bright and too warm.
Entirely too cheerful for the current state of my head. I groan into my pillow, rolling onto my side, kicking one leg free of the sheet. My arm flops into the space beside me, and I watch the faint outline of trees swaying beyond the gauzy curtain.
I didn’t sleep well.
Well, technically, I didn’t sleep at all. Not after the race. Not after Michael walked me to my car and tossed out something I can’t shake.
I think she was meant to find you.
Who even says that? Who stands there under a streetlight, all calm and unruffled, and just drops something like that—like it’s not going to sit in my chest and make itself comfortable?
Michael Price, apparently.
And of course, I just nodded like a complete idiot, muttered a half-hearted “Goodnight,” and bolted for my car before I did something stupid—like ask him what the hell he meant. I don’t want to care that he walked me to my car. I don’t want to care that he noticed I hadn’t eaten, or that he’d been watching me all night like I was worth the trouble.
Because caring feels wrong. Skewed.
My stomach’s been twisted into knots ever since. Tighter with guilt, knotted with anxiety, but buried under all of it—under the mess I’ve been trying not to dig into—is what I’ve avoided naming until now.
Fear.
That’s what it is.
And it feels wrong. Not in the moral sense, not like I’m breaking some sacred vow already shattered, but in that quiet, festering way that sits low in your gut and refuses to leave. The kind that makes your stomach churn, that pricks at your skin with guilt. And beneath all the guilt?
I’m fucking scared.
And that pisses me off more than anything. Because I get why I’m scared. God, do I get it. Years of walking on eggshells will do that to you. But I hate that this is who I am now. I hate that my first instinct is to flinch instead of lean in.
I thought I had locked that emotion up and swallowed the key. Yet here I am, sprawled in a too-big bed in a town that barely feels like home anymore, scared of a man who hasn’t actually done a damn thing wrong. Scared because some stupid part of me wants to trust him. Wants to believe he means it. Which is pathetic.
So no, I don’t want to care.
But I do.
And that’s the problem.
I roll onto my other side, the sheet tightening like it’s got a grudge, my chest already heavy with the memory of last night. Because what’s been haunting me isn’t the race. It isn’t Michael.
