Page 157 of Promise Me Not

All the air whooshes from my lungs.

“I will wait forever for just thechanceyou’ll love me back.”

Mason pulls away, turning before I can look up into his big brown eyes, and I’m stuck, standing there on the porch as I watch the man I never saw coming go.

I can’t move.

I can hardly breathe.

I stumble slightly, lowering the car seat to the ground and thrusting my hand out to catch myself on the wall.

My lungs burn, my throat is clogged, and I desperately seek the air they refuse, but it doesn’t come.

A hand presses to my back, and I jolt.

“Close your eyes,” Noah says calmly. “Close your eyes, and count to ten. Come on.”

My chin wobbles, and my body shakes, but I do as he says, and the fog clears when I get to eight for the second time. Opening my eyes, I look into Noah’s.

There’s an understanding there, a softness as he nods, grabs my elbow, and lifts the car seat from the ground. “You don’t want to stand here like this. If I know what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling right now, he’s only seconds from coming back out this door. And if not him, someone else will.”

“He told me he loves me.”

Noah smiles softly, gently urging me to move. “I heard. That’s how I know we don’t have a lot of time. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know you have to decide if you want to wait for him to come back or if you want to be gone when he does.”

I don’t want to be gone when he does.

I have to be.

I allow Noah to lead me to the curb, and we climb inside.

Just before we take the right turn off the street, my eyes flick to the mirror, and sure enough, there he is, standing at the edge of the driveway.

When the car turns, tearing him from my sight, it’s like a crack in the earth’s surface, a thundering boom that jolts deep in my chest, and I suddenly regret everything I said last night. I want to take it all back.

That’s what he does to me, though. He makes me forget everything I’ve lost, because with him in my life, I’ve gained so much more.

Why would I ask for time?

I don’t need time.

No, that’s not right. I do need it, but I need more of it with him, not without. “I think we should go back.” I turn toward Noah.

Noah looks over at me, a sorrowful expression on his face, as if he knows what I’m going through. He understands the overwhelming emotions that come with love and loss and everything else both bring. He lost everything, too, hit rock bottom before he found a way to start the climb back up.

Noah pulls to the curb, speaking softly. “We have a little wiggle room, so long as we’re on the road in the next half hour.”

“That’s perfect. I need…just five more minutes.”

Just five more minutes.

That would only make you want five more.

My entire body locks tight, my vision blurring as a weight like I’ve never known falls over me.

My mind reels as I search for the memory those words live in, but it’s not a memory, at least not a real one.

They’re from my dream.

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