don’t or you won’t?”
“At the end of the day, the distinction doesn’t really matter. The result is the same.”
She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Like she was floating up above, watching herself get rejected. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t change it. Couldn’t shield herself.
It was...horrible. Gut-wrenching. Destructive. Freeing.
Like watching a tsunami racing to shore and deciding to surrender to the wave rather than fight it. Yeah, it would hurt like hell. But it was a strange, quiet space. Past fear, past hope. All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating.
“I’m going to go,” she said, turning away from him. “You can have the bacon.”
She had been willing to risk herself, but she wouldn’t stand there and fall apart in front of him. She would fall apart, but dammit, it would be on her own time.
“Stay and eat,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I can’t stay.”
“Are we going to... Are we going to go to the gala together still?”
“No!” She nearly shouted the word. “We are not going to go together. I need to... I need to think. I need to figure this out. But I don’t think things can be the same anymore.”
It was his turn to close the distance between them. He grabbed hold of her arms, drawing her toward him, his expression fierce. “That was not part of the deal. It was friends plus benefits, remember? And then in the end we could just stop with the benefits and go back to the friendship.”
“We can’t,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. But we can’t.”
“What the hell?” he ground out.
“We can’t because I’m all in. I’m not going to sit back and pretend that it didn’t really matter. I’m not going to go and hide these feelings. I’m not going to shrug and say it doesn’t really matter if you love me or not. Because it does. It’s everything. I have spent so many years not wanting. Not trying. Hiding how much I wanted to be accepted, hiding how desperately I wanted to try to look beautiful, how badly I wanted to be able to be both a mechanic and a woman. Hiding how afraid I was of ending up alone. Hiding under a blanket and watching old movies. Well, I’m done. I’m not hiding any of it anymore. And you know what? Nothing’s going to hurt after this.” She jerked out of his hold and started to walk toward the front door.
“You’re not leaving in that.”
She’d forgotten she wasn’t exactly dressed. “Sure I am. I’m just going to drive straight home. Anyway, it’s not your concern. Because I’m not your concern anymore.”
The terror that she felt screaming through her chest was reflected on his face. Good. He should be afraid. This was the most terrifying experience of her life. She knew how horrible it was to lose a person you cared for. Knew what kind of void that left. And she knew that after years it didn’t heal. She knew, too, you always felt the absence. She knew that she would always feel his. But she needed more. And she wasn’t afraid to put it all on the line. Not now. Not after everything they had been through. Not after everything she had learned about herself. Chase was the one who had told her she needed more confidence.
Well, she had found it. But there was a cost.
Or maybe this was just the cost of loving. Of caring, deeply and with everything she had, for the first time in so many years.
She strode across the property, not caring that she was wearing nothing more than his T-shirt, rage pouring through her. And when she arrived back at the shop she grabbed her purse and her keys, making her way to the truck. When she got there, Chase was standing against the driver’s-side door. “Don’t leave like this.”
“Do you love me yet?”
He looked stricken. “What do you want me to say?”
“You know what I want you to say.”
“You want me to lie?”
She felt like he had taken a knife and stabbed her directly through the heart. She could barely breathe. Could barely stand straight. This was... This was her worst fear come true. To open herself up so completely, to make herself so entirely vulnerable and to have it all thrown back in her face.
But in that moment, she recognized that she was untouchable from here on out. Because there was nothing that could ever, ever come close to this pain. Nothing that could ever come close to this risk.
How had she missed this before? How had she missed that failure could be such a beautiful, terrible, freeing experience?
It was the worst. Absolutely the worst. But it also broke chains that had been binding her for years. Because if someone had asked her what she was so afraid of, this would have been the answer. And she was in it. Living it. Surviving it.
“I love you,” she repeated. “This is your chance. Listen to me, Chase McCormack, I am giving you a chance. I’m giving you a chance to stop being so afraid. A chance to walk out of the darkness. We’ve walked through it together for a long time. So I’m asking you now to walk out of it with me. Please.”
He backed away from the truck, his jaw tense, a muscle there twitching.
“Coward,” she spat as he turned and walked away from her. Walked away from them. Walked back into the damned darkness.
And she got in her truck and started the engine, driving away from him, driving away from the things she wanted most in the entire world.
She didn’t cry until she got home. But then, once she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t stop.
She was going to lose the bet. That was the safest thought in Anna’s head as she stood in her bedroom the night of the charity event staring at the dress that was laid across her bed.
She was going to have to go there by herself. And thanks to the elaborate community theater production of their relationship everyone would know that they had broken up, since Chase wouldn’t be with her. She almost laughed.
She was facing her fears all over the place, whether she wanted to or not.
Facing fears and making choices.
She wasn’t going to be with Chase at the gala tonight. Wasn’t going to win her money. But she had bought an incredibly slinky dress, and some more makeup. Including red lipstick. She had done all of that for him. Though in many ways it was for her, too. She had wanted that experience. To go, to prove that she was grown-up. To prove that she had transcended her upbringing and all of that.
She frowned. Was she really considering dressing differently just because she wasn’t going to be with Chase?
Screw that. He might have filleted her heart and cooked it like those hideous charred Brussels sprouts cafés tries to pass off as a
