Page 56 of Tempt

Kyra

I’m nervous.

In fact, I can’t remember ever feeling this unsettled.

The last few days have been stressful, and I’ve expressed so much hatred and anger to the point that I felt like a completely different person. I’ve cried from anger, because I refused to give in to the hurt.

Now here I stand in the driveway of Bud and Gemma’s farm feeling so unsure that I twist my hands nervously before me.

The closer Garrett gets, the more I want to run away. He doesn’t look like the same sweet guy he’s been. There is a distant look in his eyes that I already know I’m responsible for. I set the tone; I gave him doubt.

I ran.

“Hey,” he stops a few feet away and my hands itch to reach out for him.

“I know you’re working,” I look back over his shoulder and see his dad out in the field, moving hay.

“Yeah,” he says this, while pushing his hands into his pockets and glancing down at his dirty boots.

“We’ve taken ten steps back and it's my fault.” I say this then realize I’ve stated my thoughts out loud.

“What do you want me to say, Kyra? I know you’re going through something, and I also know that for some reason you can’t talk to me about it. I can’t say that makes me feel real great about things but, this isn’t about me. I have no clue what’s been going on. All I know is that one day we were good and the next you were so far gone I couldn’t even get you on the phone for more than three minutes.”

I take in a deep breath and now it's me looking at the ground.

“I’ve been trying to get you to say one thing to me. To give me one clue, one way I can help, but instead you’ve been talking to everyone else but me it seems. Tell me what I’m supposed to do with that?”

“I needed some time,” I say, feeling a heaviness in my chest that makes it hard to breathe.

“And this is me giving it to you,” he takes a step back, holding out his hands to his sides and I panic.

“My mom is back,” I came here unsure of what I’d say. But there it is, it's out there. “She’s strung out and penniless, which is probably the only reason she showed up. I haven’t seen her in years and to be honest, I wasn’t even sure she was still alive, but here she is, drumming up a lot of old feeling and hatefulness.”

Garrett allows his arms to rest at his sides, before nervously shifting his hands to his hips. His features seem softer.

“Gran has been trying to convince her to go to rehab, and she is fighting her on it. The whole thing has been taxing and we’ve been at each other's throats for days.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute you and your Gran are too close to be at odds.”

“Not me and Gran,” I say, “Me and Rose, my mother.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me this?”

“Because, I don’t want you to know this part of my life. I don’t want anyone to know.” Before he has the chance to say what about Gretchen and Grace, I hurry to cut him off.

“The night at Gretchen’s was nothing more than me telling them that I have an absentee mother who is drumming up a lot of ugly feelings and I desperately needed to forget because I refuse to break. I don’t want to break, Garrett. I don’t want to admit that everything she put me through still haunts me today. I don’t want to admit that having her here only makes me feel like that scared little girl I once was, all over again.”

He reaches out for me, but I know if I allow him to pull me in close, I will fall apart. I’m not sure once I do, I’ll be able to gain back that control. So I hold out my hand to stop him.

“If you touch me I will crumble.” He scrunches up his brows in confusion. “You’ve become my safe place,” I take in a shuddering breath. “I have Gran, I know this. She’s always made sure that I had a home, and that I felt loved. But until you she was the only person that ever did. I didn’t allow myself to believe that I could ever have more than I had because growing up with Rose I got used to things being taken away. Even when I moved here it took years before it felt like a home. I kept waiting for it all to be taken away, for it to somehow explode and crumble.”

I can tell he wants to touch me, but he refrains, which I am thankful for. I am hanging on the ledge, by a fingertip it feels.

“But with you, God Garrett you’ve made it so easy for me to just feel and not think twice. I don’t worry about tomorrow, because I know tomorrow will come. With you I know that it's gonna be better than today. But if you hold me and I break, I don’t think I’ll be able to build that wall back up when dealing with her.”

“Why do you have to?”

“Why?” I laugh not because it's funny but because I don’t know where to start.

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