Page 2 of Breaking Blaze

“If I leave now, by myself, at least I can come see you and you can come see me,” she stated, though he could hear her lack of conviction. She didn’t believe that any more than he did.

This was goodbye. Final.

She’d left after that, leaving him standing in the driveway of the hell he’d called home for the last sixteen years. And he’d realized, once again, that what his father had done.

He took something Blaze loved away.

And then, the words he’d sworn to himself three years ago echoed in the recesses of his chest…where his heart, his stupid, weak heart, was aching with every beat.

“Never again.”

Eighteen-year-old Blaze stared down into the face of the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and smiled. She was his sunshine, the breath in his lungs, the core of his heart and soul, and she didn’t even know it. What he’d felt at thirteen, what he’d thought was love…it was nothing. Nothing. Not compared to what he felt for his Anna. This was real. This was bone deep and abiding. This was what pure joy felt like.

He knew he should remember his promise to never let another girl in, to guard himself against anything resembling true emotion. That he should just keep fucking the cheerleaders and the cleat chasers and leave the “good girl” alone, but he couldn’t do it. She’d stolen his heart in one look and he was caught in her net. He never wanted to shake loose.

“Come on, Anna,” he gently cajoled, watching the emotions—worry, excitement, and something else—flutter over her lovely face. Her slightly upturned nose, her long lashes sweeping freckled cheeks as she blinked her wide hazel eyes. He’d long ago memorized every single facet of her face, etching each feature into his very soul. How could he not? She was everything. “You know you want to come in, you’ve been talkin’ about watching this movie for three months.”

She grunted, rolling her eyes, her lips twitching as she tried to hold in her grin.

He had no idea why she was being so hesitant now; just yesterday she was looking up movie times.

He tipped his head, his gaze landing on her lips, lips she was biting nervously. Lips he wanted to kiss more than anything he ever wanted to do…ever. They were plump, pink, glistening…and they would probably taste like sweet, delicious, candy. As sweet and delicious as Anna herself. She said she’d never been kissed before and that had made him ridiculously happy—because he was determined he would be her first kiss. Her first everything.

And her last.

But she was his friend, though…now, it wasn’t enough for him. It would never be enough. They’d been close as two people of the opposite sex could be without actually having sex since the day he’d first seen her. The day he’d “rescued” her from a group of assholes. Since that day, they’d been saving each other, making each other laugh in the dark, smile in the shadows, live through their hardest moments…because neither of them had an easy life. But they made each other better. Happier. Lighter.

“Fine,” she finally agreed, her grin filling her face, and filling him with an emotion so deep and devastating the whole of him vibrated with it.

He smiled in return, his throat working to find the words he so wanted to tell her in that moment, words he never thought to actually say to any woman. But with her, there were no other words that even came close to what she made him feel….

He opened his mouth and stopped, his heart wrenching from his chest.

His father was there, across the street, leaning against the wall of a bar. A lit cigarette hung from his mouth, a mouth stretched into a horrific, terrible, wicked smile.

A smile he’d seen before. One that told him his father knew. And with that knowing would come the greatest heartbreak he would ever know.

And in that moment, Blaze knew what he had to do.

He had to cut out his heart.

Never again.

Nineteen-year-old Blaze stared down at the document that would change his life forever, effectively tearing his soul from his body with a single, agonizing yank. A document he signed just moments before in front of a man who looked over him with a glint of secret knowledge in his eyes.

“Welcome to the US Navy, son.”

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