Page 103 of Caged Bird

I shook my head. “He’s the perfect early birthday present. But he deserves a day all of his own.”

She peered over at me. “What are you going to do to celebrate tomorrow?”

I snuggled in with the baby in my arms. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Lyric is taking Otis to school, and I have the day off work, so maybe I’ll go get my nails done or something fun. Treat myself, I guess.”

She nodded, and I passed the baby back to her, conscious that she was a new mom and likely wouldn’t want him out of her arms for long. She kissed her baby’s sweet cheek, and then she and Boston fell into a discussion about a middle name, and I realized it was time for me to leave.

I said my goodbyes and snuck out the door, so incredibly happy for them, and my heart full.

All except for one part that was reserved for a man who should have been mine, if only fate had been less cruel.

29

ZANE

It was always dark by the time I got home, even now, when the sun didn’t seem to start sinking until it was at least eight. I dropped my lunch bag by the door, kicked my boots off, and sank down onto the couch.

My eyes closed instantly, despite the early hour.

But that was exactly how I liked it. It was why I worked twelve- or fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, as many in a row as my boss would let me before he forced me to take a day off.

The guys on my jobsite all assumed it was because I wanted the money.

But that wasn’t it.

I needed to be at work, because every second I wasn’t was a constant battle not to go running back to Saint View.

Being away from Fawn after knowing what it felt like to be with her was a new sort of torture, one I didn’t realize would be so all-consumingly painful.

One I didn’t know I would have to spend every waking moment fighting, because all I wanted to do was turn up on her doorstep and beg her to take me back.

The only thing that stopped me was knowing what she needed outweighed what I wanted.

She needed space and time to heal. And even though it had been killing me, day after day, week after week, my heart knew she was right.

That we never would have made it if we’d stayed together.

But it didn’t make the agony of being apart any easier to bear.

I fell into an exhausted sleep like I did every night, knowing with one-hundred-percent certainty that I’d dream of her.

I always did.

Raindrops fell on my face, tiny cold splashes, but it didn’t matter. Because in my dreams, they fell on Fawn’s face too. They ran in streams down her pink cheeks, and we both laughed, standing there in the rain, not caring that we were getting soaked, when the only thing that mattered was the two of us.

Until the rain turned heavy, and suddenly it wasn’t just rain, but an entire flood of water that got in my ears and eyes and mouth until I felt like I was drowning.

I woke up with a start, sitting upright, the room around me dark.

And water in my lungs.

I coughed and spluttered, my shirt wet and sticking to me while I wiped at my drenched face and gasped for breath.

“Sodramatic,” a feminine voice drawled in the darkness.

“Right?” a man answered. “You dump one little bucket of water over someone’s head while they’re asleep and they act like you dunked their head in the toilet and held it there while you flushed.”

My heart slammed against my chest; my brain too confused to identify the voices. I hit the touch lamp beside the couch, and a soft yellow light lit up the room.

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