Chapter 16 Emory #2
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes as the sickening reality dawns on me that I’ve fractured the life we’ve built together. Lance and I had a promising future, but that slowly sifted away, covered by the realities of life.
“I truly am sorry. I never planned for all of this to happen, but I can’t ignore what I feel anymore.
I can’t ignore that being with you feels…
wrong.” I keep my gaze steady on him as his face flushes with heat.
He’d never lay his hands on me, but he’s also never been one to hide his anger when he’s been pushed into a corner.
He purses his lips. “What am I supposed to tell people? My parents?”
Emotion flickers in the back of my throat, making my voice crackle when I continue. “The truth, Lance.”
He clenches his jaw. That storminess in his eyes blackens to a shade I don’t think I’ve ever seen. “You want me to tell everyone in my life that you left me for your therapist? What the hell are they going to think, hmm?”
My heart drops, knowing he cares more about his image than the relationship we’ve had for the last three years. It only validates that I’m doing what’s right.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. For once, that’s not on me to figure out.
I challenge him, taking a final step up to him—to my now ex-fiancé, to a man who was always meant to protect me, yet failed.
“This is what it is, isn’t it? You were never meant to help me through what happened.
I wished so many times that you’d be able to handle it, but you couldn’t do it, Lance.
You couldn’t love me during one of the hardest times of my life.
Even if we were struggling before, you push that aside for the person you love and you show up for them.
You listen to them, regardless of what the topic is about.
” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Our hearts were already fragile, but you were the one who took the sledgehammer and completely eviscerated mine.”
“What did you want from me?! I tried my best. I’ve always given you my all, even when you started pulling away from my family.
You made it seem like you were ready, Emory.
That you wanted to be a Bronson, and then, one day out of the blue, that went up in flames. How is that supposed to make me feel?”
“I wanted to live my own life, Lance. A life with you that didn’t involve feeling like someone was constantly managing me or putting me down.
Your inability to give your mother proper boundaries affected that.
” A shaky breath skips past my lips. “You’ve been distracted since the very first time I came to you to voice my concerns and opinions on wedding plans.
More often than not, you swatted my words away like they were annoying gnats.
Not to mention how much you’ve been working since my accident.
If you couldn’t be there for me through all of that, how could you ever stand across from me and promise to protect me and my heart for eternity? ”
“I can’t with you… With this…”
“That’s fine. You don’t need to.” I steel my voice, lowering it. “You either take my voice from me entirely or you allow others to speak over mine without doing a damn thing to defend me. At the hospital, with our wedding, now this…”
“If we hadn’t stepped in, they would have admitted you.
You know this, and yet, you’re still un-fucking-grateful over it.
You know,” he sneers, “my mother told me for years that she didn’t think you could step up.
That she feared you’d crumble from the image of who our family is, and I never wanted to believe her because I loved you. ”
My gaze bounces between his eyes, tangling in the messiness of this conversation, in years of a relationship that, looking back, was better off untouched.
I’ve wasted years with a person who was never meant for me.
With a man who never planned on standing next to his partner but in front of her.
“But she was right,” he says, looking me dead in the eye.
“You can’t handle it. I was a fool to think that you ever could.
That you were actually being honest with me when you said you wanted to be an important part of my life, of my family’s.
You pretended to like all of us, but that was so far from the truth.
” Each word stings like a slap to the face, the center of my chest aching from a broken heart.
Despite now knowing that Lance and I aren’t meant to be, it doesn’t hurt any less.
There was a point in time when I loved him unconditionally.
“I should’ve listened to her,” he spits in a low voice filled with pain. “I regret ever trying to make her think you were the perfect woman for me. It would’ve saved me a lot of goddamn time and stress.”
A slow tear tracks down my cheek, and I take a step back, reclaiming my own personal space as I stare at Lance, at the stranger in front of me. “I can’t do this with you anymore.”
“Join the damn club,” he says, a harshness to the edges of his words.
He walks over to the cabinet where we have a small alcohol collection for special occasions.
Opening it, he finds a bottle of Macallan and sets it on the counter.
“Pack your stuff, Emory. The wedding is off, and we’re done. I don’t want you here anymore.”