Until You (Fall Away, #1.5)(101)

I looked to Tate again. Her eyes were on me, and she was listening, so I kept going.

“Maybe if I knew it was near, but not gone, then I’d be able to live without it. But that didn’t work either. So after a few days of failing to sleep on my own, to be strong without the stupid animal, I decided to massacre it. If it was beyond repair, then it would be useless to me. I’d have to get by. There wouldn’t be any choice.”

Tate.

“So I took some garden sheers and chopped it to pieces. Cut off the legs. Memories gone. Snip off the arms. Attachment gone. Throw it in the trash. Weakness…gone.”

I looked down, and my voice cracked, remembering how I’d felt like someone had died when I did that.

“I cried the whole first night,” I added, taking a deep breath and clearing the ache in my throat. “It wasn’t until two years later that I found something that I loved more than Henry. I met a girl who became my best friend. So much so, that I even wanted her by me at night. I’d sneak into her room, and we’d fall asleep together. I didn’t need her so much as she just became a part of me. I was wanted, loved, and accepted.”

My eyes were only on Tate now. She was planted in her seat, completely still.

“She’d look at me, and I’d stop dead in my tracks, never wanting to leave that moment. Do you know what that’s like?” I scanned the audience. “Day in and day out, you’re thrilled to be alive and experience a million moments of love and happiness that constantly compete with each other. Every day was better than the last.”

Shit got blurry, and I realized I was tearing up, but I didn’t care.

“But just like Henry,” my voice got strong again, “I concluded that my attachment to her made me weak. I thought I wasn’t strong enough if I needed anything or anyone, so I let her go.” I shook my head. “No, I pushed her, actually. Away. Out. Over the edge.”

“I abused her. Cut her to pieces, so our friendship would be beyond repair.” Just like the bear. “I called her names, spread rumors to get people to hate her, kicked her out and isolated her. I hurt her, not because I hated her, but because I hated that I wasn’t strong enough to not love her.”

The whole room was as silent as a graveyard. People who had laughed, weren’t laughing anymore. People who weren’t paying attention, were now.

“Now, I could go on about mommy didn’t love me and daddy hit me, but who doesn’t have a story, right?” I asked. “There are times when we can blame a situation on others, but we own our reactions to them. There comes a point where we are the ones responsible for our choices and excuses don’t carry weight anymore.”

I’d just aired my business to the whole school. They knew I was a bully. A jerk. But the only good opinion I needed was hers.

Descending the stairs, mic in hand, I walked up the aisle towards my girl.

And I spoke only to her.

“I can’t change the past, Tate. I wish I could, because I’d go back and relive every day that I existed without you, and I’d make sure that you smiled.” My eyes burned with regret, and I saw the pools in her beautiful blues, too. “Every minute of my future belongs to you.”

I crouched down next to her chair, thankful to see my world back in her eyes, and placed one knee on the floor.

“I’ll do anything to be good for you, Tate.”

Leaning into me, she buried her face in my neck, shaking with the release of her tears. I breathed her in and wrapped my arms around her.

This was it.

Home.

“Anything, baby,” I promised.

She leaned back and wiped her eyes with her thumb, sobbing and smiling at the same time.

“Anything?” she laughed out, her eyes bright with happiness and love.

I nodded.

Her forehead pressed into mine as she held my face in her hands and asked, “Have you ever considered a nipple piercing?”

Oh, for Christ’s sake.

I choked out a laugh and kissed her hard, much to the pleasure of the roaring crowd around us.

Such a handful.





You wanted an Epilogue, right? You wanted to see them in college or ten years down the road with their kids? I know, I know, but you’ll just have to wait. Jared and Tate will be featured in my upcoming stories, so stay tuned!

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Please turn the page for a sneak peek at Madoc’s story, Rival, coming in late summer 2014.





“Fuck,” I breathed out. “Could she move any slower?!” I asked Jared as I sat in the backseat of Tate’s R8 with my hands locked on top of my head.

She twisted around from the driver’s seat, her eyes sharp like she wanted to drive a knife right through my skull. “I’m heading around a sharp turn at nearly fifty miles an hour on an unstable dirt road!” she yelled at me. “This isn’t even a real race. I. Told. You. That. Before!” Every muscle in her face was as stiff as steel as she chewed me out.

I dropped my head back and let out a sigh. Jared sat in front of me with his elbow in the door and his head in his hand.

It was Saturday afternoon, the day of Tate’s first real race, and we’d been on Route Five for the last three hours. Every time the little twerp down-shifted too soon or didn’t hit the gas fast enough, Jared kept quiet, but not me.