Chapter 29 #2
“I was g-going to text.” Her wide eyes grew glassy with moisture.
She was hurting. I had done this. I had screwed up the night. I had to fix this. I had to find a way to fix everything.
My mind raced.
My neck burned.
“You promised you wouldn’t just disappear. You promised me you would tell me before you left.” I felt sick with terror. She was going to leave. She’d promised that she wouldn’t do that.
“Pace. Man, let’s go outside,” Levi said, a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“No. I don’t care if people are looking.” I brushed him off roughly. I turned around and made a gesture at the staring people who looked away suddenly, abashed.
“But she might,” Levi growled, temper growing.
He was right. Making a scene was not going to help. I closed the distance between us, but she stepped back.
She was already pulling away from me.
“No,” I whispered softly.
Panic gripped me. I shook in disbelief. She looked at me in horror. The baby bunny again, frozen, body flattened to disappear.
“Come on, Soph. Just tell me, what’s going on?” I stepped closer. I could see the pulse in her throat pounding wildly. Her pale color was tinged with green.
It was as though the whole building went quiet.
Rationally, I knew music still blared, people still yelled loudly to each other around the room, but in this bubble of the people in this immediate vicinity, I felt the air thick with tension.
I felt this fucking bow tie strangling me, and the heat of a hundred-plus bodies stuffed into this room.
Every second that ticked by that she didn’t speak felt like a lifetime.
“The list,” she said eventually. She had to speak up to be heard, and this time, there was a noticeable silence after.
I frowned in confusion. I hadn’t expected that. The list was the last thing on my mind.
“I don’t—”
“The list was leaked online,” she explained. Her voice shook as she spoke. “Everybody here knows now that I’m just another sad charity case for you.” Sophie found her voice as her words settled in.
“No. You’re not—How? It wasn’t—I would never—” I panicked and thought back to all the times I held the list. Had I accidentally lost it? Had I fucked up more than I even thought possible?
“I know it wasn’t you,” she said loudly in a rush, her hands balling at her sides as they punched down. She collected herself with a deep breath in and out. “But I want to go home. I need some time alone.”
My whole body went icy with fear. My throat tightened, and the knot in my chest was crushing my lungs. She couldn’t leave. If she left, I wouldn’t see her again, like Kaylee. She’d lock herself away from me like Levi. I had to fix this. I had to do something now.
“I want to be alone,” Sophie said. “I tried, Pace. I really did. For you. I did more than I ever thought possible. But I need to be alone now.” Her voice trembled, a flush of emotion spreading up her neck.
Her exposed shoulders heaved up and down with her sharp breaths as she spoke.
Fear, like I had never felt, burned the backs of my eyes and filled them until my vision blurred. I had to protect her. Show her she was safe with me. That I didn’t want her to change. That she was perfect as she was.
I couldn’t let her leave.
She couldn’t leave.
My whole body shook with fear, worse than running toward an inferno.
“Marry me!” I shouted. It came out without me thinking.
The words hung in the silent air around us. I froze, eyes wide, mouth closing slowly. I wouldn’t take it back. I meant what I said. Levi swore softly at my side. A few soft gasps and murmurs came from behind me. Sophie’s wide eyes flicked around and back to me.
Her features contorted with horror. Her head shook slowly. “Pace, you don’t mean that.”
Levi stepped forward and put an arm on me. “Not like this, Pace,” he said.
I felt the stares of the town like flames licking up the wall. I could keep her here. I could keep her safe and protected.
“I do mean it.” I held her stare. I felt how wide and frantic my eyes must look, but she had to see that I was serious. She had to stay with me. “I want to share my life with you,” I said.
She shook her head. A tear that had been balanced on her lid finally spilled over. It cracked my fucking heart open.
“You don’t want to share your life with me, Pace. You don’t even share your real self with me,” she said.
I opened my mouth in pain. I shared more with her than anybody. But it wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough.
Not enough, not enough, not enough.
My mouth opened and closed, and all words failed me. I’d never been in this position. I couldn’t formulate a single sentence.
Sophie dropped her shoulders and sighed with emotion. “I’m not something you need to fix.” She lifted her chin even as it quivered. “I just need to be alone.”
She left without looking back.
And I was alone again, unable to keep the person I loved.
Because I realized at that moment, I was not enough. And I never would be.
I just need to be alone.
I don’t know how to help the people who need me.
Alone.
Alone.
The room seemed to pulse in my eyeballs along with my racing heart.
“Pace? Are you okay?” Levi asked.
Watching her leave poured water on this grease fire, consuming my thoughts. I was too far gone to stop the pain from taking over my brain.
“I-I got to go.”
He called something after me, I think offering a ride, but I was too far checked out. This perfect evening had turned entirely upside down. And at the end of it all, I had nobody to blame but myself.