Page 139 of Love Notes & Lifelines
If you don’t want her getting custody of the girls, walk away from them now.
Everyone’s telling me to walk away, and it hurts so damn much.
You’re listening to the wrong voices, Stella. Find your voice, sweetheart, and trust it over anyone else.
“How do I listen to my voice when I don’t even recognize it anymore?” The words echo in this space. I glance at Tabby’s closed door, but I don’t move. Instead, I curl into a ball, ignoring the hard surface below me, and allow all the voices in my head to wash over me. The good ones. The cruel ones. The ones I no longer recognize. Somewhere in the tangled mess is my voice, so what is it I want to say?
CHAPTER FORTY
BECK
The sun is risinglike an angry ball of fire over the ocean, but it does nothing to warm the chill that’s taken over my body. It crashed into me the second Elijah confirmed that Stella was gone.
One fucking moment of hesitation—one moment where I allowed my fears to win. That’s all it took, and the pain I inflicted was etched in her face. I’ll never forget her expression.
“Fuck,” I mutter. My breath puffs out in a cloud against the cold morning air. Daisie sits dutifully at my side, for once not being a pain in my ass, but she whimpers at my harsh tone, so I bend down into a squat and pet her head.
“I messed up, Daisie.” Her ears rise, and it’s all the warning I get before she jumps up and places her heavy paws on each shoulder. We tumble to the ground, and she licks my face.
“Dang it, Daisie. Cut the shit.” She doesn’t stop, so I roll to my side, but she follows. It takes three tries before the mutt allows me to stand.
It’s freezing out here, but I refuse to go inside. My fingers went numb hours ago, but it doesn’t keep me from obsessively checking my phone for a response. The first three text messagesshow as read. The next eight haven’t been opened, and my gut twists with what that could mean.
My willpower and pride sank into the ocean hours ago.
Beck: Baby, please talk to me. I know I fucked up. I didn’t do the one thing I’ve asked of you.
I stare at the phone in my hand, praying for the message to show as read or for the three dots to appear, but I get nothing.
“She’s sleeping,” Elijah says over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard the sliding glass door open, but perhaps that’s what he wanted because it creaks loudly as it closes now.
I nod but don’t turn to him.
“Just give her some time, Beck. I’m sure the events of last night were just as overwhelming for her as they were for you.”
“She’s still at Tabby’s?”
My cousin texted last night to tell me she found Stella curled up on her sofa, her face red and swollen from crying, and it cut my chest wide open knowing I did that, at least part of it.
“I’m sure she is,” he says, falling into a chair, so I slide in next to him.
“I need to talk to her.”
“She needs time. She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
“But I have to tell her I trust her, that I love her.” The desperation in my tone causes his icy demeanor to thaw. Not fully—he’s still giving me the cold shoulder—but his defenses are slowly lowering.
It doesn’t even bother me that he’s on Stella’s side—if anything, it makes me love the guy more.
“She knows,” he says, staring out over the ocean. He’s tucked into a flannel blanket, while I’m still in my clothes from last night.
I won’t be warm without her anyway.
I shake my head. He doesn’t understand.
One goddamn moment in time.
“Would you have noticed her if you hadn’t needed her?”
