Chapter 48

*Mikayla*

When we get back to the house, Jake's truck is in the driveway.

I’m fumbling to open the door and get out before the car’s come to a complete stop. I rush to open the front door because I really, really need to see him. I need to tell him that I love him and that I need to be with him. Like, be with him.

“Jake!” I call out.

“In here!”

“Where?” I’ve stopped just inside the front door, trying to listen for where he’s calling from.

“Here!”

I walk down the hall way and look in the study, he’s not there, then I look into my room.

And he’s there.

And the world around me goes black.

People talk about heartbreak like it’s a figure of speech. But the truth is, it is physically possible. Because I feel it. I feel every single excruciating bit of pain that comes with it. And I feel like I’ve died.

But I haven’t. I’m still breathing.

In what could have been seconds of me standing in the doorway to my room, literally felt like a fucking lifetime.

But I’m not dead. I just haven’t opened my eyes. Because when I do, I’ll see the one thing I never ever wanted to see.

I take two deep breaths in and out and count to ten in my head.

When I open my eyes, I see my room.

The bed has been stripped, my comforter and baby blanket are gone. Cardboard boxes splayed throughout the room, some empty, some filled with my belongings.

Jake has my dresser drawer open and he’s packing one of the boxes with my clothes.

It’s over.

He wants me out.

Gone.

From his house and his life.

And were done.

My legs start to give out, so I take all the energy I have left and I sit on the edge of the bed.

I don’t look at him. I can’t see him.

I sit there and I cry. Silent tears. My head bent. Hands gripping the side of the mattress. Shoulders slouched.

I can’t face him.

I hear him pack more of my things, of my life. Everything I have left in this world, packed up in a few boxes.

And I cry.

He shuffles in and out of the room. Taking boxes and bags with him.

And I cry.

Because it’s all I can do. When your heart breaks and you lose absolutely everything you have left in your life. The only thing you can do is cry.

I don’t wail.

I don’t sob.

I just sit in silence and let the tears fall.

Because in my mind, playing like a fucking movie, is all the regrets I’ve ever had.

Every moment where I should have told him. That he was it. He was my Prince Charming. My White Knight. My Happily Ever After. My every fucking thing.

Then I feel him, his presence in front of me, and I’m too shit scared to open my eyes.

His hands are soft as they reach for mine, lifting them to place them behind his neck.

And I know what this is, this sad fucking goodbye that I can’t take. So I do nothing.

But then his hands are behind my thighs and he’s lifting me in the air and my grip around his neck tightens as my legs automatically go around his waist.

He’s moving us, walking, one hand behind my back and the other behind my head, like I’m a fucking baby. Because I am. I’m a fucking baby and I need my Mommy and Daddy so fricken much.

I hold on to him so tightly, like I want to climb him and never ever want to let go, because I don’t. Want to let go, I mean.

All of a sudden I’m laying on something soft and something warm is covering me and it feels so familiar but I can’t comprehend what it is and I still don’t want to open my eyes and face reality.

The next second I’m laying on my side, and he’s in front of me. His arms wrapped around me so tight, it’s hard to breath. But I breath through it, because I want to feel alive in this moment. The last few moments we have together, I want to remember every single piece of him. So I open my eyes and he’s there.

We’re in his bed.

Under my comforter.

Surrounded by boxes of my things.

He kisses away the tears that have fallen all over my wet face. Then he looks at me, really looks at me.

And then his lips are on mine, and my eyes close because the sensation is so overpowering. At first they don’t move, like we’re just connected there, waiting for the sparks of the touch to sizzle away. But after a few moments, he opens them slightly and our lips start moving together. Like a perfect fucking symphony. His arms are around me and my hands are gripping his shirt and then his tongue brushes against my lips and I moan in pleasure.

When our tongues touch for the first time, I see white behind my eyes. And I know it. I get it. That my mom was so fricken right about this moment.

We’re holding on to each other and we’re kissing, with lips and tongues and so much fricken passion that I don’t know if either of us is actually breathing.

Jake Andrews was wrong. He was so wrong. He didn’t need to do this to make me his. I was his the moment he asked me to move here with him. And the moment he held my hand at the funeral. The moment he took me into his home when I had nowhere else to go. I was his the moment he held me, while I cried in the back of that ambulance. When he was my strength when I had none. I was his the moment he cleared his throat, and I looked up at him with tears in my eyes, in that tiny little hallway just outside the restrooms at that restaurant.

And I knew it, I knew it when we were at Walmart and I was fixing his tie, that was the exact second I knew, that instant, intense feeling I had, meant that I was standing in front of my forever.