Page 41 of The Young & the Sinner

Mason

I staredat the closed door for a while, feeling lost.

I probably shouldn’t be caught dead standing outside her room at this time in the night, yet my brain felt like molasses. I just stood there, not thinking about anything but what she’d told me.

I hadn’t realized Grace’s abandonment had affected Olivia so deeply. Hell, it probably started with Michael’s abandonment, and yet I had no clue.

She hid it so well.

I thought she was well adjusted. A little quiet, very shy, but that was just a personality thing. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet to fear Max would leave her like her parents…

I wanted to grab her shoulders then, and tell her that if there was one person she didn’t have to worry about leaving her, it was Max. That when it came to her, he would do almost anything.

But her fear of abandonment probably went beyond what was reasonable. And I didn’t know how to help her.

Or whether I should.

If she knew my sins, she wouldn’t welcome my help.

If she knew, she wouldn’t be looking at me like I hung the moon.

My gut clenched as an uncomfortable feeling took hold.

I didn’t think I would ever regret my past decision more than I did back then, but that regret was back, and it was tenfold what I had been feeling before. It was the consequences of my actions staring back at me in the form of a tiny brown-eyed girl who barely reached my shoulders.

My hands closed into a fist by my side and, letting out a sigh, I moved back into my room, even though I knew how pointless it would be.

Sleep evaded me for the rest of the night.

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