Page 63 of Breathless With Her

Because if I weren’t, that meant that all of this would be for nothing.

And this?

What wasthis?

I was sitting in my car at a gas station, halfway between my home and the place where Frank Rose apparently lived.

I’d known about his address for four days. And I hadn’t done anything about it.

I hadn’t told Jenn. I hadn’t told Devin.

What would I tell them?

Devin knew about my family. He knew because he had known us when we were younger. He knew that my dad had left us. And he knew now that my mother had left just the same. In fact, she had left soon after Devin and Jenn broke up.

Maybe I should have told Devin about finding my dad. But I hadn’t.

And that was on me.

I was such a mess.

I didn’t want to have to rely on him. Because once I did, things would get serious too fast. And if I let it be serious, then I would think about what those feelings were deep inside of me. And I didn’t want those. Not really. I’d had them before, and they had broken me.

I just wanted this to be fun. Why couldn’t I just let things be fun and not serious and just make things work?

Why did I always have to make things hard?

But here I was, sitting at a gas station, looking down at the address of the man who had raised me for what…a minute?

The man who had left us.

I needed to know why.

And I couldn’t let it break me.

Because if I let it get to me, I didn’t know who I would be after the fact.

I’d worked so hard to figure out who this new Erin was. The one without Nicholas by my side. Would I be a strong woman that could handle anything?

Apparently, not. I’d had to rely on people when my place flooded. I hadn’t been able to handle it on my own. And, yes, a small part of me realized that asking for help was a very big part of learning how to be strong and independent.

But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to let anyone in.

Because people hurt you. They broke you.

I wiped away the tears that fell down my cheeks and cursed at myself.

Here I was, overthinking things again. I was just going to look at the house. I wasn’t going to call. I wasn’t going to look him up. I was just going to see. And then I would go home and figure out what to do next.

Because I was scared—so damn scared.

And I didn’t like being afraid.

“Okay, Erin. Time to put on your big-girl panties and just get it over with. It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

I gave myself a nod in the rearview mirror, started my car, and pulled out of the parking lot.

The drive was easy. It wasn’t rush hour, and I-25 was in decent shape in this area. If I had to go south, I probably wouldn’t be as happy, but I liked this part of the drive.

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