Corrupted Chaos (Tarnished Empire)(67)

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, but I remembered the words and, although I hadn’t read it in maybe a year, they flashed before me now. The hand that held my phone shook as I thought of her rummaging through my things. “You shouldn’t have been looking through my stuff. Put it back now.”

“I was looking for your damn cat, and I came across the box.”

“You didn’t have to look in it.” I raised my voice and then took a breath before I tried to rush past Cade into the living room.

He stopped me with a hand on my arm and took the phone from me.

Lilah gasped and stuttered, “Are you two working?”

“Something like that. Put her stuff away, and she’ll call you back.”

“Cade, this is serious.”

“Do as you’re told.” He hung up and stared at me.

Curling up and crying in the bathroom was what I wanted to do, but instead I stood there with my chin raised. “You already know part of the story from the campfire. The rest is I was involved with a guy before juvie. I loved him, and he was too old for me.”

I waited for his recoil, for him to frown upon my actions, but there was none whatsoever from him. He waited, like he wanted the whole story.

I took a deep breath, turning the bracelet that I wondered if he would want me to keep after I admitted this. “It was wrong and stupid and reckless. But he was my first love. He’d have been charged with statutory rape had anyone found out about us. I was sixteen and now I know he’d probably preyed upon me, groomed me, and changed me.” I shrugged, trying to shake away the heat of embarrassment I felt rising to my cheeks. “Therapy taught me all that. Yet, even still, a heart can break quickly and soundly. Mine shattered when I realized he chose to leave me, that he didn’t love me like I thought I loved him. I was embarrassed and in pain. It broke me, was big enough to destroy me.”

Cade tsked. “You haven’t been destroyed yet, baby doll.”

I let out a small laugh that held no joy. “Cade, I’ve hidden this for a long time. It’s embarrassing and wrong and . . . heartbreak and embarrassment hurt. That pain wrenches at your soul. Shakes you awake with the weight of the reminders and the pain. I couldn’t handle it at first and used drugs as a crutch. It’s how I know that love broke me, that I’m wrecked for all others.”

“Why would it wreck you for others?”

“I try to find . . .” I hesitated, looking for the right words. Cade was messy, my boss, and my weakness. Falling for him was like jumping out of a damn airplane, not knowing if the parachute would open. “I try to find love that won’t hurt, that’s safe and comfortable at best. That way, if I lose someone like I did him, I won’t go back to what I did then.”

He studied me for a moment before asking, “What did his letter say?”

Would he look at me differently if I told him?





20





Izzy





My gut wrenched, my heart breaking all over again at the thought of telling the man I was falling for about the first man I’d ever loved.

“It was just a way of him saying goodbye to me.” I tried to brush it off even though my body shook with the pain of remembering that day, his written words, his lifeless form.

“That all it said?” He stepped close, caging me in against the hallway wall.

“I can’t say it out loud,” I whispered, about to break. My body shook from trying to hold in my sobs, trying to overcome the emotion that fought to escape. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

This could have been the moment Cade broke me. He could have told me to buck up or said this was why he didn’t trust me with more at work.

He could have said so many things. But he didn’t.

As he stared at me, his hand came up to rub my cheek. He didn’t look through me or glance away from me. He held my gaze like he wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted my soul, and he couldn’t hack into my mind to get it. Here, he had to ask if he wanted this side of me.

And I had to say yes.

He held out his phone. “If you can’t talk about it, put it in writing on a screen and let me read it.”

I took my time typing in his Notes app, tears streaming down my face. Yet, Cade wiped them away, one by one, over and over again. Patiently, softly, caringly.

Line 1: I won’t say this is a love letter, because it’s not.

Line 2: But if I were to have written one, it would have been about you.

Line 3: So, don’t blame yourself.

Line 4: You’re too good for this place by me.

Line 5: I probably should have let you go before all this.

Line 6: But I couldn’t. You were the only one who loved me.

Line 7: All that love around you. I just wanted a sliver.

Line 8: It fucked with my head and made me weak, so weak I held onto you.

Line 9: You think I’m strong to do this? Or a coward?

Line 10: Maybe if I tell you to move on, I’ll be strong but . . .

Line 11: I’m too jealous and our love ain’t healthy

Line 12: Get a love that isn’t dangerous like ours

Line 13: I’m sorry for the mess.

Line 14: But I’m letting you go now.