Like Gravity(87)

I think that calmed him somewhat, because his grip on the safety bar loosened up and he turned to look over at me as we began our descent back to the ground.

“Happy Birthday, Bee,” he said, squeezing my hand with his own.

I thought again about my earlier birthday wish, and prayed even harder that it would come true.

“Thanks, Finn,” I replied, smiling back at him.





Chapter Seventeen


Breaking Point



“Bee? Bee, what is it?” Finn asked. He’d pulled his head up from the crook of my neck, and was staring over at me with a concerned look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

His voice snapped me back to reality. Our car was poised at the top of the wheel, no doubt offering a breathtaking panoramic view of the fair below and an incredible sunset – a fiery ball of red making its descent in the western sky. At the moment, though, it was all a blur. I stared straight ahead, unable to look at him. Completely unwilling to believe what my mind had just revealed to me.

My first instinct was to reject it outright. Utter denial. Because there was just no possible way that the sad eyed boy who haunted my memories was Finn. My Finn. It was too ludicrous to even contemplate.

My next thought was that this was all some kind of coincidence; a grand cosmic joke, played out by fate or destiny or whatever gods exist up there. Maybe one day they, in all their infinite omnipotence, were bored enough to reach down and stir the pot; to mess with us mere mortals here on earth, so that by the time we finally caught on to what was happening, it was too late. Then, when we were running around like chickens with their heads lopped off, trying desperately to do damage control on our messy lives, they could just kick back and watch, unapologetically entertained by our lack of power and foresight.

I quickly rejected that idea, partly because I liked to think I had at least a semblance of control over my own destiny and secondly because that would be one hell of an unlikely coincidence.

That left one final option – the only true explanation there’d ever really been. I didn’t want to face it. I didn’t even want to think it. All I wanted to do was rewind the clocks back fifteen minutes, to before I’d climbed on this goddamn Ferris wheel and everything had changed.

Was it only fifteen minutes ago that everything had been perfect? That I’d been happy? That I’d believed that I, for once in my life, was lucky?

It seemed a distant memory now, superficial and fleeting; disappearing with the wind on gossamer wings, so quickly it was as if it had never been real at all.

The truth was, though, a part of me had suspected all along that this, that he, couldn’t possibly be meant for me. Deep down, I’d known I wasn’t meant for good things – for lightness and love. It just wasn’t in the cards for me, and what a fool I’d been, if only for a brief span of time, to think otherwise.

Even with that knowledge firmly in my head, it wasn’t any easier to accept it as the truth. And, against all logic, I desperately wished for any other explanation.

Because if it were true, it meant that not only were Finn and the sad eyed boy one and the same…it also meant that Finn was a liar.

He’d known exactly who I was from the moment we’d met.

He’d known about my past.

He’d known about my mother.

And he’d used that knowledge to break me apart and put me back together again just the way he wanted. He’d infiltrated my life, inserted himself into each and every facet of my existence, until I fell so deep in love with him I didn’t know where he ended and I began anymore.

And he’d never said a goddamn word.

I’d trusted him; that was monumental for me. Worse, I’d let all my walls crumble, and for what? Some boy who’d charmed his way into my good graces and then wormed his way into my heart and my pants.

What was I to him? What was this mockery of a relationship? Some kind of f*cked up retribution for our shared childhood?

Did he really think he could just saunter back into my life and…what? Fix me?

Did he even love me?

How could you truly love someone if everything you’d ever told them was a lie?

There were endless questions, and no simple answers. But the bottom line was that he was twisted.

He was a liar.

And he definitely, unquestionably, was not the man I’d thought I knew. The man I’d thought I loved.

I’d never before understood the term breaking point. People always talk about how they’ve been pushed to that place where you the stress and fear are so intense your mind simply can’t handle it anymore. I’d thought it was a load of crap, a concept thought up by people who are either too emotionally unequipped or too cognitively lazy to sort through their mental messes and face reality.

I understood it now.

I could literally feel my mind breaking apart – splintering into pieces as it tried desperately to reconcile the things I thought I knew about Finn Chambers with what I had just discovered. It was kind of like looking at a Picasso – all the essential parts were there, but damned if they weren’t f*cked up and put completely in the wrong places.

My mind wasn’t alone though, because my heart – my stupid, blind, unprotected heart –was fracturing into pieces too.

“Bee?” Finn repeated, worry apparent in his tone. “What’s going on?”