Rule (Marked Men #1)(89)

“You’ve always been in my life Shaw. We should’ve been able to make this work.” I wanted to shrug but I only had one working shoulder so that wasn’t an option. Instead I swiped at my tears with the back of a hand and offered him up a shaky smile.

“There are a lot of things that maybe should have gone one way and didn’t. I know most people thought you and I being together was a long shot anyway so we should just be grateful for what we had.”

“I feel like I’m letting you down, letting everyone down and for once it’s bothering the hell out of me. I just don’t know how to work around what’s going on up here.” He tapped his temple with a finger.

I was crying in earnest now and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that if he could just love me, just learn to let me love him the way he deserved, the way I desperately wanted to then it would all be fine but that wasn’t the case. we needed to believe in each other, needed to trust that we were enough without trying to be other people in order to be together and that just wasn’t happening so I closed my eyes and for once was the one to shut him out and fall into the dark.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be. I’m getting tired can you send a nurse in on your way out. I think the pain killers are starting to wear off.”

“Shaw, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too Rule, really I am too.” Because I had spent a lifetime in love with him and as much as I wanted to be strong and pretend I was going to put it all behind me, letting go of what I felt for him was going to be the hardest thing I ever did. We stared at each other for a long, sad minute then he turned on his boot and left. When Ayden came back in the room I was crying inconsolably and she had to crawl up on the bed to wrap her arms around me. I cried longer than I ever had before, I cried until there was nothing left inside me to cry out and when I was all done I let my best friend hold me as I fell apart. The nurse Rule sent in came in with a pain killer but when she saw the state I was in she turned right back around and came back with a sedative.

I spent one more day in the emergency room but when I got out I realized there was no way on this earth I was going back to my apartment with Gabe out on bail restraining order or not. Luckily Cora had an extra couple rooms open in the house she rented in the Washington Park area because both of her roommates had recently got engaged to each other and had moved out to get their own place so Ayden dropped me off at her place and returned a couple hours later with all my essentials packed up for an extended stay. She said the property management company was working on getting the place cleaned up but even with that it still gave her the creeps to be there alone so it didn’t take more than a week for her to ask Cora if she could crash in the last room at her house as well. They even agreed to let us break the lease without paying a penalty because of what happened to me. Being around the girls did wonders for both my mental health and my physical state. They never let me get down and someone was always there to remind me that everything I was feeling was temporary. They also refused to let me freak out over pressing charges against Gabe.

Things were moving fast and a few times it looked his father was going to use every trick he had to get Gabe off, but magically Alex Carsten had stepped in and now Gabe was on an ankle monitor and being charged with not only aggravated assault but breaking and entering as well. I didn’t for one second think that was a favor my mother called in, but Rule and I were back to radio silence so I never called to ask him or to thank him. Of course the Davenport’s had the best defense lawyer in town on the payroll, but all signs pointed to a slam dunk for me so I tried to stay positive.

I was refusing to talk to either of my parents. In fact I hadn’t told either one of them I moved and I had changed my phone number within hours of leaving the hospital. The fact of the matter was I had nothing to say to either of them, all the things I had said to Rule held true for them as well. I deserved better and if they weren’t willing to give me the love I showed them without restrictions or demands then I didn’t want them in my life. I knew my mom was struggling with the fact that she had to be accountable for the fact that she ultimately is the one that let Gabe corner me alone, but like I told Rule the only person I blamed was Gabe. It was more important to me that she recognize that she should have never pushed him on me when I told her I was in love with someone else in the first place. If they couldn’t figure out how to love and appreciate me for me then I would make do without them.

Ayden and I were settling into a new routine and we both adored Cora. It was nice to be living in a house rather than an apartment and as each day went by it got a little easier to breathe around the hole in my chest where my heart had once been. It had only been two weeks but it felt like a lifespan we had been apart. This time faking it to make it was so much harder, maybe because I knew for real it was the end but there was no fake smiling, no pretending to glide through life. I was struggling and I was struggling hard. I missed him. I loved him. I couldn’t have him and it was killing me in an entirely different way than when I had loved him from afar without him knowing it. Cora was back to keeping all talk of work and the guys at bay but every now and then she would let something about him slip and every time it felt like a shard of glass in an open wound. It should have made me feel better that he didn’t sound like he was doing much better than me but it didn’t. We both deserved happiness, it just sucked that we couldn’t seem to find it together.