Page 164 of Mason

I curl in on myself, clutching the blanket tighter. “I can’t do this.”

Mason’s instantly on the floor in front of me, eyes wild with concern. “Shelby?—”

“I can’t keep pretending I’m fine when I’m not,” I choke out. “I’m jumpy, I can’t sleep, every time I close my eyes I see him—Ifeelhim—” My voice cracks. “And you… you come homecovered in blood like it’s normal, like this world is something I can survive in?—”

“I don’t want you to survive in it,” he snaps, then softens. “I want you to live in it. With me.”

“I’m not strong like you,” I whisper. “I’m not whole. I feel like I’m broken. Like I’m falling apart piece by piece.”

His hands hover near mine, not quite touching. “You’re not broken.”

“Yes, I am,” I say, barely breathing. “And you shouldn’t have to carry someone like me.”

Something in him flinches. He leans back on his heels, jaw clenched.

“I don’t carry you,” he says. “I stand beside you. There’s a difference.”

I shake my head, tears sliding down my cheeks.

“You deserve someone who doesn’t wake up screaming. Someone who doesn’t flinch when you walk into the room.”

Mason swears under his breath and rises, pacing the room like a caged animal. “You think this is easy for me?” he growls. “Watching you like this? Wanting to fix it and knowing Ican’t?”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity!” he snaps. “It’slove.”

My heart stops.

He freezes too.

Silence stretches, thick and dangerous.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” he mutters, voice raw.

“But you did,” I whisper.

We stare at each other. Two shattered people standing on opposite sides of a chasm neither of us knows how to cross.

“I don’t think I belong in your world,” I say, and it’s like ripping out my own ribs. “And I think you’ll realize that, eventually.”

I stand, numb, moving like I’m underwater. I walk past him without a word, to my room, and pack a small bag before I can change my mind.

I leave a note I don’t sign.

I tell myself this is for the best. That Mason’s world is violence and vengeance, and I’m no longer a woman who can live inside that storm. I tell myself I’m doing him a favor. That I’m protecting him from the shell of me that still sees ghosts in mirrors.

But when I open the front door, suitcase in hand, he’s already there.

He doesn’t say a word.

He just stands on the porch, half in shadow, half in light—barefoot, shirt wrinkled, like he stayed because some part of himknew.

His eyes meet mine. And it’s not anger I see.

It’s not confusion.

It’sgrief.

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