Page 136 of Set me Free

"Creed?" she asked, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

I swallowed. "We need to talk and you didn’t answer my calls, so I decided to pull up on you.” I felt like this was something I was always doing; going to her, meeting her where she was at, giving her the upper hand.

She exhaled sharply, hesitation clear on her face, but she stepped aside. "Come in, I only have a few minutes before I need to be back on set."

Inside, her trailer smelled like vanilla and cocoa butter, the way it always did. She sat on the small couch, folding her legs under her. I stayed standing, hands in my pockets, trying to figure out where to start.

"SB—"

"Don’t," she cut in, rubbing her forehead. "I already know where this is going, Creed."

"Do you?" I challenged.

She gave a tired laugh, shaking her head. "You want your family back, right? That’s why you’re here?"

"Yes," I admitted without hesitation.

She scoffed. "Of course. Because that’s what you do, Creed."

I frowned. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that every time things don’t go your way, every time life humbles you, you come running back to me," she said, staring me down. "Like clockwork."

My jaw clenched. "That’s not fair, SB?—"

"Isn’t it?" she interrupted. "We’ve been doing this for damn near ten years. I mean, look at us, Creed." She gestured between us. "Look at what we’ve been doing. How much longer are we gonna act like this is normal?"

"Because we love each other," I shot back, my voice rising.

She let out a bitter laugh shaking her head. "Love? Love shouldn’t be this hard."

I stepped forward, frustrated now. "It’s hard because we makin it hard."

She stared at me, lips pressing into a thin line. "Or maybe we just aren’t good for each other." That felt like a punch to the gut. I blinked, trying to process what the fuck she just said.

"What?" I whispered.

"Creed, we’ve been through so much bullshit, and here we are, again, having the same damn conversation we had years ago." Her voice wavered slightly, but she didn’t break eye contact. "I don’t wanna keep hurting like this. I don’t wanna keep hurting you."

I dropped down onto the couch next to her, running a hand over my face. "So what, Serenity? That’s it? We just give up?"

She was quiet for a long moment, then whispered, "Did we ever really try?"

I turned to face her, my chest tightening. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "Creed, when have we ever just been together without some kind of drama? Without something pulling us apart?"

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have an answer. Because she was right. Every time we’d tried to be together, there was always something—Gianna, Jailah, Iman, distance, pride, pain.

"Maybe we’re just not meant to be," she murmured.

That was it. That was the sentence that broke me. I grabbed her hand, squeezing it. "Baby, don’t say that."

She pulled her hand away. "Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it?"

I shook my head, refusing to accept that. "No. It’s not."

She sighed again, looking away. "I just wanna be happy, Creed. And if you really love me like you say you do, you’d want that for me too."

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