Page 92 of Shape Of My Heart
That was it, he’d had enough of niceties and being pleasant. He grabbed her arm, ready to show her the door, but in that moment Amy walked in and stood in thecorridor.
“I bought too much again, so don’t tell me off,” Amy said, but she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw Josh holding Allegra’s arm and looked from Josh toAllegra.
Her eyes landed on Josh, a question in her gaze and sadnesssurroundingthem.
Josh dropped Allegra’s arm. “It’s not what you think,” he said once he could find hisvoice.
“Or maybe it is,” Allegra stated withmenace.
“No,” Josh cried. He moved towards Amy but she shook her head at him andsteppedback.
“Leave her, let’s just go already.” He couldn’t believe Allegra could sinksolow.
Amy dropped her bags and rushed away through the door. Tears ran down hercheeks.
Josh ran after her and caught up with her on thebeach.
“Amy, stop. Please.” He grabbedherarm.
“Don’t touch me,” she cried, trying to wrench herarmfree.
“Please listen to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Amy, I would never cheatonyou.”
She shook her head as she cried. She looked so hurt and distressed he didn’t know what to do. What could he say tofixthis?
“Just let me go, Josh. Just letmego.”
“No.”
“You have to. This is my fault. I should have known it would be a mistake being with you. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what you were like. My mother loved a man who could never be hers. I can’t let the same thing happentome.”
“Amy, that will not happen to you. Iamyours. Allegra came to the house and was probably there for five minutes. She took off her clothes and I told her to leave.” It was like talking to a wall, because Amy looked at him withoutunderstanding.
“Damn it, Amy, can’t you just look at me and see that I’m telling thetruth?”
He’d seen people do it. Josh had seen it happen where people could distinguish between a lie and the truth. They would be able to defend each other to the death if need be because they knew the other person so well that they knew truth when theysawit.
He guessed, though, that that wouldn’t happen here. It took trust, deep trust, for that to work, and she didn’ttrusthim.
He could see that he’d lost her but he had one last card up his sleeve. “Amy, I love you. I love you, and I would neverhurtyou.”
That had to work. He’d never told anybody besides his family that he loved them before. It shouldn’t have taken this disaster for him to tell her. It should have been something that he told her every day. Him, who was so open with hisfeelings.
But he was saving it for a better time, that special moment. Now he’d wasted it on his onlychance.
And it did nothing and meant even less than that. All it did was make her cryevenmore.
“Please, just let go of me, Josh.” That was allshesaid.
He stared in disbelief, chills running down his spine. He couldn’t believe that she didn’t believe him, but worse than that, she wanted him to lethergo.
As he released her he felt like his world had just been ripped away from him. He’d only experienced this feeling once before, and that was when he’d gotten the news that his mother and Clarissa had been killed. That news destroyed him and tore himapart.
* * *
Amy walkedto Gabriella’s house. She couldn’t stop the tears that poured out of her weeping,torturedsoul.
Once again she had that feeling of being in an abstract painting, trying to feel her way around the twists and turns so she could find a straight path of sense. Her biggest fear had leapt out of her head and presented itself before her like adisplay.
