Ripped (Real, #5)(77)

There when my water broke.

There when I had the baby.

And there . . . when they took the baby away from where I lay on the birthing bed, never more alone.

No matter how much my mom hurt at the thought of me getting pregnant, she couldn’t bear to see me go through an abortion. She’s . . . human. But if she kept me away from Mackenna . . .

“Oh, is that an engagement ring?” the woman in the seat next to me asks. She looks about my mother’s age, except she’s far warmer and chattier.

I smile at her, and before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m extending my hand like some idiot ready for the altar. “It’s a . . . promise ring.”

Oh god, why did I take it? He doesn’t know what he’s doing, giving it to me again. He doesn’t know who I am anymore, who I became after him. That we had a girl. Could have been a family. And yet I’m so fixated on him that I slipped on the ring again, and I’ve been turning it around on my finger ever since. Looking at it, lifting it to my lips, closing my eyes and kissing it, because I missed it like I missed him. His eyes, his smiles . . . the way we were happy.

“Ahh, a promise ring,” the woman says, sighing when I return my hand to my lap. “Love is a wonderful thing,” she tells me, gripping my arm with a little squeeze and a secret smile.

I smile at her and say no more. God, I’m just so f*cking dazed. Dazed, excited, hopeful, and as frightened as Magnolia is of the monsters in her closet. I’m frightened of the monsters in mine! I’m having real trouble coming to terms with this new, wonderfully scary situation where Mackenna and I may have a shot. We have a chance. God, even the word “we” is weird! He walked away, made me ache, but now he wants me back. And though I act like I won’t be back—and question whether I can ever really be back with him—did he ever really lose me?

How can you stop belonging to someone who has ravaged you like he did me?

How can your first and only love sweep through you like a tornado and not leave his mark?

And now my body’s acting ridiculous. My heart, my lungs—even my brain. I feel like I did when I was seventeen and ready to run away with him, the critters wiggling in my insides when I remember the heated kiss he gave me a mere few hours ago before I boarded the plane. I’ll see you in New York? he asked, kissing me again as if he couldn’t help himself.

I said yes, but was that the truth?

Or did I lie?

You’re a f*cking liar, Pandora. You can’t have a future without telling him what you did, what happened after he left. You have to tell him. You blamed Kenna . . . but you see now it wasn’t his fault . . . it was all you . . .

God, I wish our mistakes never had to see the light of day. Like little monsters, they could always remain in the closet. But if I let my monster out of the closet, it won’t just haunt me; it will haunt us.

? ? ?

BACK IN SEATTLE, I hail a cab and head home, my brain turning over my options slowly, the clonazepam dulling my speed. Right in front of me is the opportunity for a new start. A second chance. Why not? Anyone with just a little bit of self-love, anyone who loved Mackenna even a third of the way I love him, would give herself the chance.

Why not? a part of me screams.

I know why not, but I don’t want to hear it. In fact, I’m almost ready to pack again for a whole damn year. I have almost managed to convince myself we can pick up right where we left off, at a time when I was ready to head off into the sunset with him. I’m already thinking of how his eyes will light up like the moon his inner wolf howls at when he sees that I’ve returned. I can almost taste the desperation in his kiss when I plant a good one on him. Because that’s the kind of kiss that I’m going to give him when I see him again. The kind that makes a man stop asking questions and think of nothing but the woman in his arms—the woman luckily being me—and we can pick up right where we left off. Him and me. In love, all over again.

I’m already excited, letting the dreamer in me be dazzled by the promise ring on my finger.

She’s in her office with the door ajar, sitting behind a huge desk that almost seems built to keep a perennial wall between the world and her. “Pandora,” she says, and gives a light smile. But there’s no emotion. Her voice doesn’t waver very much.

Do I speak like that?

I almost shudder at the thought and hug myself, and that’s the very moment when her eyes—dark like mine—flick to the ring on my finger. Her expression is overwhelmed by a fear I’ve never seen on her face before, and for the first time in ages, I hear a crack in her voice.

“He told you, didn’t he?” she suddenly whispers, lifting her eyes to mine. She looks terrified.

I’m too stunned to answer, too dulled by my favorite pill.

My mother clears her throat, but her eyes remain wide and almost rabid for information as she gestures to the promise ring on my finger. Even though she remains in her seat, her gaze searches my face for clues, and several things strike me in unison:

It’s true.

“Why are you wearing that ring? I thought you were over that boy.”

I’m still very confused, but the adrenaline in my body is mounting fast, clearing my brain by the second.

“Over who?” I ask with deliberate slowness, narrowing my eyes.

“Don’t play silly. Mackenna Jones.”