She’s leaving. She’s leaving, and I can’t fucking breathe.
“Cole?” Her voice gets softer, her eyebrows pinching with concern. “Are you okay?”
It’s like the words flick a switch somewhere. I step back and slam my palm against the metal of the tent pole. Roxanne jumps.
“How can you ask me that?” I demand. “How can you...How can you think there’sany chance I would be okay?”
I’m losing it. I can’t stop now. All I want is to be able to pull myself together, but I’m already gone. I’m no better than my dad.
“I fought for you!” I shout. “I fought for us! I get up every day, and I fuckingbattleto have you, Roxanne. How could you think I would beokayif you just.Threw. That. Away?”
I emphasize every word with a bang of my fist on metal. I don’t even feel the pain.
“Please,” she murmurs.
“Pleasewhat?” I demand. “Make this easy on you? I was going to ask you to move in with me! Today, after the show, I was going to tell you that I’m ready to make this work. For real this time.”
“This time,” she repeats, with a trace of bitterness. “Listen to yourself. How many times have been ‘this time’ for us? How many times have we tried again?”
“That’s what you fucking do when you love someone!” I don’t care who hears me shouting. “You keep trying! You don’t just leave!”
I see the pain make her wince like a blow to the stomach, but that’s nothing compared to the way my whole body feels like it’s being kicked right now.
“I’m doing thisbecauseI love you—”
“That doesn’t fucking make sense!” I interrupt, digging my fingers into my scalp, searching for something to hold onto, something to ground me and calm me down. I have to calm down. I won’t be like him.
“I know you don’t understand that now, but we’re...We’re not okay. We need to work on ourselves, Cole. We’re just two buildings crumbling against each other. Maybe that’s a kind of love, but it’s not the good kind. It’s not the kind that can last.”
I’m shaking. I’m actually shaking. This is everything I’ve ever feared. There’s too much inside me right now and nowhere for it to go.
Cool it. You’re not him. You’re not.
I force myself to breathe. I force the world to narrow to just the woman in front of me, and somehow that makes everything slow down.
I step towards her until I’m close enough to reach for her hand. She trembles, but she lets me take it and watches as I bring her fingers to my temple.
I close my eyes. I pray for strength. I pray for control. I pray to the god I knew as a child, to the god I know she still looks for in that old church. I pray to any god who might be listening today.
I open my lips and pray toher.
“Read my mind.”
I feel her hand shaking in mine. My blood throbs in my ears, blocking out every other sound.
When I look at her again, she’s crying. Tears slide down both her cheeks, makeup streaking the edges of her eyes. It reminds me of the first time I ever looked into them.
She stares at me for a second, a minute, an hour, and then she slowly shakes her head. Her hand falls out of mine.
“Cole...”
Something inside me dies. Some flame that was struggling for oxygen has suddenly gone out, and I don’t want to know who I turn into without its light.
I have to get out of here.
I turn and stride blindly away, letting out a sound close to a growl when I collide with somebody standing in my path.
“Cole!” Matt shouts, as I keep moving past him. “Wait!”
