Page 131 of Breakout
“Beck, areweokay?”
“I want to say yes. Go back and pretend everything that happened hasn’t happened, but I can’t.”
She nods. “I understand. I knew it was a risk doing all of this, but I hoped it wouldn’t end this way. I guess we can get a divorce whenever you are ready. I know it might not be right away. I don’t want to make you look bad to your new team, but yeah. I’ll sign whenever you want.”
My heart lodges in my throat.
Whatever I thought she would say, it wasn’t that.
Fuck.
I don’t want to divorce her.
twenty-nine
My heart is breaking as I watch the emotions flash over Beckett’s face. It seems no matter what I do, I keep doing the wrong thing.
He should find someone better. Someone who won’t taint his image and ruin his career. I want to be with him, but no matter how selfish I want to be, I won’t ruin his life.
I’ve handled pain like this before, and I can do it again. He will be better off without me.
“Is that what you really want?” he finally says, anger clear on his face.
No. I want you.
The words are there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say them.
So I say nothing.
Today is supposed to be joyous. I won the case, but I can’t find joy when I’m losing yet another person I care about.
I won, but at what cost?
“I wish you’d open your eyes and see what is right in front of you,” he finally says, turning to take off down the street.
My feet follow him, unable to let him go even though I should.
“Beckett. Please, Beckett, wait,” I call out.
He either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to. I keep on his trail following him until he stops outside of the little diner he proposed at. Where it all began.
“The day I proposed to you here was the best day of my life. I was finally going after something I wanted. My family wasn’t involved. I didn’t have to answer to anyone. I did what I wanted for once.”
“Beckett, I’m sorry…”
He cuts me off. “I don’t want to hear it, Peyton. The day I met you, I knew that you were something special. I wanted to get closer to you. Then you let me in, but only on your terms, and I thought, why not? I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give. Then you agreed to marry me, and I hoped like fucking hell it meant that you might be feeling even a sliver of what I feel for you, but you don’t. The shittiest thing about it all is I did this to myself. You’ve told me over and over that you don’t do relationships. That the rules are there for a purpose. I should have believed you.”
“The rules were there to protect me, Beck. My heart. So I never had to suffer like I did with my parents. I know I’m not good enough for you. You’re going to wake up one day and realize that you settled for the first girl who made you feel something in college and missed out on your life.”
“How can you even say that? You don’t know how I feel, Peyton.”
“You have had a front seat to the family drama in my life. You see the people who share blood with me. How could you want that in your life?”
He lets out a deep sigh, moving toward me to cup my cheeks. “Sometimes I just want to shake you. You aren’t the blood that runs through your veins. You are your own person. You lived your entire life without that trash in it. You made something of yourself with no help from anyone else. You are better than them. Better than me. If there’s anyone who doesn’t deserve the other in this relationship, it would be me.”
“No…”
“No is right. You are wrong. I was so fucking lost before you walked into my life. I felt helpless. Stuck. My father had such a tight grip on me that I couldn’t see a way out. I was suffocating. Then you walked into my life. You showed me that I don’t need to rely on my family to have a good life. I can make my own way without their money at my back. Because of you, I stuck to the boundaries I want between my father and me. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that I won’t work for his firm. I want to play hockey, and then after that, who knows, but it will be what I want. You did that for me. Seeing how strong and resilient you are showed me that I could be strong too. I only needed to take a leap.”
