Falling with my ass to my calves, my eyes close. I knew this was going to happen. I could have prevented it from happening, but I didn’t, and now I’m left exactly how I knew I would be.

Shattered.

Feeling tears pool in my eyes, I shake my head. I can’t cry, not yet. I need to get out of here before I have my breakdown. Falling to my side, I keep the sheet around me as I move and swing my legs over the side of the bed to put my feet to the floor. The moment I stand, my legs shake along with the rest of me.

“Keep it together, Kimberly,” I whisper to myself as I go to my bag across the room on the floor, pick it up, and carry it to the bed. Hurrying, I throw on the first pieces of clothes I come across, a pair of loose sweats and a T-shirt from my college days. Dressed, I move around the room, picking up Sage’s clothes from the last couple of days, which I take and put in the hamper. Then I find my nightie from last night, take it to the bathroom, and toss it in the trash under the sink.

Staring at my open makeup bag that I didn’t get a chance to close up last night before Sage came in, my throat burns. My pills are all out of it and lining the counter like he had inspected each of them before he confronted me. I put everything back in the bag as I swallow over the knot forming in my throat, and I carry it to the bed to dump it in with my other stuff.

I spend the next ten minutes on my hands and knees picking up the pills that scattered across the wood floors, and once I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten all of them, I slip on my shoes, put my stuff on the floor, and strip the bed, folding the thick white duvet before taking the sheets to the laundry hamper in the closet.

Done, I give the room a once-over before I leave with my bag over my shoulder. I don’t know if Sage left or not, but I’m not going to stick around to find out. Grabbing my keys off the island in the kitchen, I pull off his house key and drop it to the countertop, feeling that knot in my throat expand and tighten. I know I’m going to break at any second, and that pushes me to not walk but to run toward the door and out of the fairy tale house, where I had fallen in love with its owner.

Chapter 13

Kim

LISTENING TO THE phone ring and Sage’s voice mail message click on, I close my eyes and pull the phone away from my ear.

“Honey,” Mom calls, and I hang up, drop the phone to my lap, and look at her.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” she asks, stepping into my room—or what used to be my room. My first year away at college, she’d kept the space exactly as I left it. My second year, she added a treadmill to the corner of the room. And by the time I graduated college, she’d added boxes, a sewing table, and a work desk.

“I’m okay,” I lie.

She shakes her head. “Do you want to eat something?”

“No.” My stomach rolls at the idea of food and I pull my quilt up around my waist.

“You really should eat.”

“I know. I’m just not hungry right now,” I say, and her face softens as she walks across the pink rug covering the floor toward where I’m sitting in the middle of my day bed before taking a seat next to me.

Running her hand down the hair at the side of my head, she pulls it back over my shoulder. “Things will be okay. Give him some time. He’ll come around.”

Nodding, I don’t agree out loud. I can’t. I left Tennessee on a whim, and now I’m wishing I hadn’t. I should have waited Sage out. I should have let him cool down then talked to him. Instead, I ran away to my parents’ house like a coward. I was so caught up in everything I was feeling and protecting myself that I didn’t think about what Sage must have felt when he found out about my illness and how upset he was by the news. I didn’t think about anything except running away from him.

“Have you tried calling him?”

“His phone is going to voice mail,” I whisper, closing my eyes. I’ve called three times since I realized me leaving was a mistake. Every single time, his phone has gone right to voice mail, which means he’s turned it off and doesn’t want to hear from me.

“Don’t cry, honey.”

“I’m not,” I lie again, wiping the proof of my lie from my cheeks.

She laughs softly while she wraps her arms around me and drags me to rest against her chest. “Even as a kid, you were stubborn.” She pulls in a breath while running her hand down my hair. “Always so hardheaded.” I hear the nostalgic tone in her voice, and my arms tighten around her middle as I bury my face against her. “Your dad and I learned early on to let you make mistakes. You wouldn’t learn any other way. We could tell you fire was hot and that it could hurt you until we were blue in the face, but until you felt the heat from the flames yourself, you didn’t believe us.”

“Because I’m an idiot.”

“No.” She leans back, taking hold of my face, and I watch tears pool in her eyes. “You’re not an idiot. You’re one of the most amazing women I know. You’re smart, loving, loyal, and inspiring. You make me want to be a better person. From the very first moment I held you in my arms, you made me want to be a better person, and your determination to do things your way is one of the things I admire about you.”

“Mom.” I close my eyes then open them back up when she gives me a gentle shake.

“If he doesn’t find a way to accept you as you are, then he’s not worthy of you,” she says quietly, and I nod then close my eyes again as she leans in, pressing her lips to my forehead. “I’ll bring you some soup. You need to eat and take your pills.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She kisses my cheek before she stands and leaves the room, coming back a few minutes later with a bowl of hot soup.

After eating as much as I can stomach and taking my pills, I climb under my covers and call Sage one last time, feeling my heart clench in my chest when he doesn’t answer and I once again get his voice mail.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper before I hang up and drop my phone to the bed.

Tucking my hands under my cheek, it takes a while, but eventually I cry myself to sleep.

Sage

OPENING THE FRONT door, I head down the hall, past the kitchen, and straight to the bedroom. As I flip on the light, my jaw clenches when I see the room is picked up, the sheets off the bed, and the duvet folded neatly across the end of the bare mattress. Moving to the closet, I grab my duffle off the top shelf and drop it to the floor.

An hour ago, I got a voice mail from Jax telling me that Kim left town. He said Ellie called him earlier in the afternoon to tell him that Kim was taking off, that she stopped by the shop on her way to the airport to let her and Frankie know she was leaving and needed a few days off to go see her parents.

When I got that message, my anger that had dissipated throughout the day came back. Jax knew I had been out of cell range all day, but he didn’t know Kim and I fought. He thought something happened to one of her parents, so he’d been trying to get a hold of me. Unfortunately, I had taken off to the mountains to think, which left me without phone service, and my delay in getting any calls all afternoon meant Kim was able to leave town without me knowing.

As much as I could understand her reason for leaving, I’m still pissed she did. Yes, we fought. Yes, I lost my shit. But Jesus, I just found out the woman I’m in love with is sick. Not just sick, but seriously fucking sick. And she didn’t fucking tell me about it.

When I saw her pills and realized what was going on, I couldn’t think straight. I should have left her in bed, gone to clear my head, and then talked to her when I was calm. But I didn’t do what I should have done. The same fear I felt when I was told she was dead came back tenfold, making it impossible for me to be calm.

Dropping enough clothes for two days into my bag, I pull off my shirt, taking it to the laundry hamper, and see the sheets from the bed when I shove it in. I ignore the clench in my gut as I grab a clean tee off the shelf and put it on, then leave the closet and walk across the room to the bathroom.

Spotting her nightie in the trash under the sink when I grab my overnight kit, my teeth grind. If she thinks me washing the sheets and her trashing her nightie will erase things for her or for me, she’s lost her damn mind. I waited too fucking long for my shot, and I’m not going to let her run off and build up walls. Not this time.