Chapter 49
MAISIE
Rain lashes angrily against my face, cold and relentless, stinging my cheeks as I burst out of the front door with my breath caught in my lungs, searching for Wilder.
It takes only seconds for the heavy rain to drench me, causing my hair to stick to my forehead, my clothes to plaster against my skin, and my vision to blur from the water dripping into my eyes.
“Wilder!” I yell, but the storm swallows it up.
I cup my hand, curving it along my forehead in an attempt to shield my eyes as I search the parking lot, but the wind is raging as angrily as the rain is, and it’s falling sideways.
I can hardly see anything, and I don’t see Wilder.
Taking the porch stairs two at a time, I run down the sidewalk and through the gate into the mostly empty parking lot, spinning in circles, squinting to try and see through the rain…
And then I find him.
In the overgrown grass of the empty lot next door, his head bowed, hands planted on his knees, shoulders heaving.
I’m running to him before my thoughts even have time to register, before I even realize what I’m doing.
My feet nearly slip in the mud as I stop short in front of him.
Scared of what to say or how to approach, but more afraid not to try.
“Wilder,” I whisper softly, and he flinches as if the word physically struck him.
For a long, agonizing beat, he doesn’t move. He remains folded over, sucking in gulps of air like he can’t breathe, and I realize that he might be having a panic attack.
My knees hit the wet, thick mud as I drop down in front of him and slide my palms along the edges of his jaw, cradling his face in my hands. “Breathe, Wilder.”
His skin is cool, and I can feel him trembling beneath my touch, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the rain.
My heart splinters, fracturing deeper with each breath I pull into my own lungs, from seeing him this way.
He doesn’t look at me.
He doesn’t do anything but drag in ragged breath after ragged breath, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, like he still can’t get enough air, no matter how many times he tries.
“Wilder, look at me,” I try again, stroking his jaw, and when he doesn’t move, I grasp tighter, trying to bring him back, trying to tear him away from whatever is threatening to pull him under. “Look. At. Me.”
A beat passes, seconds moving agonizingly slowly that are filled with the panic that I might not be able to reach him at all, that I may not be able to bring him back.
But then he opens his eyes and slowly lifts them to mine.
I thought my heart was already fractured for the man in my hands, aching in a way I’ve never known. But I was wrong.
Because when he looks at me, it robs me of breath. It destroys what’s left of my heart until there’s nothing but shattered pieces remaining.
Wilder looks… broken.
Haunted.
It’s the only way to describe the faraway look in his eyes, the raw agony shining back at me from the depths, an unguarded glimpse into the darkness inside of him.
The same deep brown, burnt-amber-ringed irises that I’ve come to know, but look different now.
Heavy with agony.
I push down the tears that I feel burning behind my own eyes and the ache of emotion at the base of my throat, and I drop my forehead against his, holding him as tightly as I can. “I’m here. Focus on me and breathe, okay? Slowly.”
His labored breathing is unsteady on my lips, but I feel him trying, trying to slow his breathing down, trying to fight.
I don’t know how long we stay like this, our foreheads pressed together as rain falls around us, breathing together like my inhales are the only way he can exhale.
I no longer even feel the rain.
Hear the wind.
All I feel is Wilder.
The man I love is shattering, and if all I can do to show him that love is to hold him together with my bare hands, then I’ll stand right here, forever.
“I… I-I couldn’t do it,” he whispers, voice tight and rough from the panic attack, emotion clinging desperately to each syllable.
“I thought I could… I couldn’t.” He peels his eyes open and stares at me, and those tears return in my eyes.
I’m unsure if they ever left. “Couldn’t fucking breathe, Mais. ”
“I know. I understand.”
He must suddenly realize that I’m kneeling in the mud because he shakes his head and pulls me off the ground until I’m standing in front of him. There’s an ache in my knees from how long I must’ve been down there, but I didn’t feel it until now.
I still barely do.
“I’m sorry. That I just did that. Ran out.” His voice breaks as he says it. Through all of it, he hasn’t stopped shaking.
“Don’t apologize. Please,” I murmur, stroking his jaw. “You’re a human, not a statue.”
“Let me take you home. You’re drenched and covered in mud.”
I shake my head. “I don’t care about the rain or the mud. I want you to talk to me, Wilder. What happened in there? Please.”
His throat works, and I feel it. The walls he’s already attempting to reconstruct. The thoughts rushing through his head. “I just couldn’t handle it, Maisie. It was not—”
“Don’t you dare say it was nothing,” I cry, cutting him off. God, as crazy as I am about him, he infuriates me. Reaching up, I swipe the water out of my eyes and shake my head. “Don’t do this. Don’t push me away because you’re scared to let me get any closer.”
The muscle in his jaw jumps, and he looks away, the eye contact too much for someone who wants to run. He’s like a wounded animal who’s been hurt so many times before that the thought of letting anyone get close again cripples him.
I might not know the history of what he’s been through or the pain that he’s had to endure, but I know that it’s haunting him still today.
I can see the way that he’s trying to hold it together, trying to stitch the pieces back together each time they start to come loose. Like now, his posture rigid, muscles tight as if he might flee in the next breath.
I’m done letting him run. Done letting him face the storm that’s tearing him apart inside alone.
I grab his face, my fingers tight as I force his gaze back to mine. “Let me in, Wilder. Stop giving me pieces but never something whole. Whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to do it alone. Let me do it with you. Let me carry some of the weight. God, just let me.”
He shakes his head, over and over, his dark eyes holding mine. “I can’t. No, Maisie…” The words are cut short when emotion catches in his throat. “I won’t. You’re to goo—”
“Let me love you.”
He freezes, every muscle in his body stiffening as I say the words.
It makes my stomach dip, saying it to him for the very first time, unexpectedly, and the fact that he might still push me away almost enough to make me lose the nerve, but I have to be brave enough to face the storm.
To face a reality that he might not feel the same, but it’s worth the risk to my heart if it means that he’ll know he’s loved. That he’ll understand how much he means to me.
“Maisie…” he starts, but his mouth snaps shut, and I exhale shakily.
“I l—”
Suddenly, his hand flies to my lips, curving over them. “Please don’t fucking say it, baby, please. I’m begging you.”
Tears spill from my eyes, mixing with the rain streaming down my face, and it feels like he’s just stomped on what’s left of my heart.
“You can’t, Maisie. I can’t let you.” The words sound as shattered as the man saying them.
Reaching up, I wrench his hand away from my mouth. “You don’t get to decide for me, Wilder. You can’t control everything. You can’t stop someone from fucking loving you!”
We’re both breathing heavily now, our chests rising and falling as the storm continues its assault.
“I am not worthy of your love, and I never will be.”
Each word pierces my skin like he’s carving them with the sharpest blade.