Page 57 of The Girl I Once Loved

How my world doesn’t make sense without her.

But Sky is too lost in her lust-filled desire to hear the subliminal message my heart is so desperate to divulge.

I have to stop.

I have to.

Because if I don’t stop this now, then when she leaves at the end of the summer, I’ll be right back to that cold unforgiving place—where darkness rules and bitter loneliness prevails. I’ll drift away, completely lost at sea again, because when she leaves… she’ll take with her the only light that ever showed me the way home.

Because no matter what she was led to believe, Sky is home to me.

She always will be.

Begrudgingly, I break away from her and take two wide steps back, not trusting myself with the temptation still laced in her hooded gaze. We just stand there staring at each other, our heavy breathing a testament to what we let transpire. Hating the stilled silence between us, I open my mouth to say something, only for Sky to beat me to the punch.

“You should go.”

I swallow dryly and give her a clipped nod.

“Right, because why stay and fight when it’s so much easier to walk away?”

The words feel like poison rolling off my tongue as I march out of her bedroom, fully aware of how unfair I’m being to her right now.

Sky didn’t run away—she was pushed.

I fucking pushed her.

So why am I so surprised Sky has chosen to play it safe in all areas of her life, when I’m the reason behind such decisions.

I sacrificed my happiness, thinking it would give her the world.

But in the end, all it gave us was a world filled with regrets and withered potential.

Chapter Thirteen

Skylar

Itwist and I turn in bed, unable to silence his words. Viciously, they claw and scratch around the edges of my brain, leaving ugly scars, demanding they be heard, until I have no choice but to confront them head on.

Although I hated every word that came out of Noah’s mouth earlier today, I can’t deny there was some truth in them.

I have been hiding.

But contrary to his belief, it hadn’t been purposely done at first.

I had planned on writing my own stories when I first graduated, but for that to happen, I knew I needed a job that would enable me to pay my bills and still leave me enough time to write. Getting accepted at Rosewood Publishing as a ghost writer seemed to fit that need perfectly.

It was just dumb luck that my first assignment was an autobiography of a famous chef, who wanted to up his celebrity status by giving the world a tell-all book about what really happens in a Michelin star restaurant. When the book came out, it was such a success that Hollywood came knocking to turn the book into a T.V. series, one that eventually would win Emmy after Emmy.

After that, the ghostwriting autobiography jobs just kept on rolling my way, and I was all too eager to accept them, completely putting my own dreams of writing fiction to the side. It had been so easy for me to get pulled in and distracted from my original objective. And though Noah accused me of being a cowardly sell out, my decision to continue on the path I was on hadn’t been entirely about the money.

Although I must admit, the five to six-figure paycheck at the end of each project didn’t hurt either. The more prestigious the celebrity was, the more I was paid for my discretion.

Still, that’s not why I kept at it.

Even from an early age, I had been fascinated with people’s interactions and lives. How they thought, acted, and felt. While before I had to eavesdrop to get my fix, my clients now shared their personal stories with me willingly. Through them, I got to experience all sorts of things. How it felt to climb a mountain in the worst weather conditions, or the adrenaline pulsing in a singer’s veins when she stepped on stage to be greeted by thousands of her loving loyal fans. It was all so captivating and exciting for me to hear these stories first-hand that somehow it felt like I had been a part of it. A part of their journey.

Though I would never have the recognition of writing such tales since I was legally bound to never take credit for one word that was written, it didn’t matter to me. In the end, I didn’t feel like I should be credited for any of it anyway, since all I did was narrate the lives of people who couldn’t do it for themselves. I was happy just to be a part of their experience and felt humbled they turned to me to help them share those intimate memoirs with the world.

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