Love in the Light (Hearts in Darkness, #2)(35)

She followed him. “Gah, I’m going about this all wrong.”

“Going about what?” he said, that rock getting a little bigger in his gut.

Makenna closed the distance between them, her hands falling on his chest, her baby blues looking up at him with so much affection. For a moment, she appeared to struggle for words, and then she said, “God, I’m being a tongue-tied idiot right now.”

“Whatever you have to say, just say it,” he said, dread prickling like ice all down his spine. Her unusual nervousness spiked the anxiety inside him and tightened the knot in his chest, making his breathing shallow out.

“Okay. Here goes. Caden, I…I love you. I love you so much that I can barely remember my life before you. I love you so much that I can’t imagine my life without you. I’ve been dying to tell you, but I know we haven’t been together that long. Though, to me, the number of weeks that I’ve known you feels completely meaningless to how attached my heart has become,” she said, her voice urgent and so damn earnest. “I love you. And I’m in love with you. That’s what I really wanted to say.”

He heard the words as if through a long tunnel. They came to him slow and detached, as if his brain had to translate them from some other language to one he could understand, to one he could trust.

Makenna loved him.

Makenna had said the words. Words her actions had been communicating for weeks. Hell, maybe more.

The gates that held back the darkness in his psyche had been badly battered the past few days, and hearing her declaration destroyed what was left of them. All his fears, all his doubts, all his insecurities came rushing forth until he was drowning, suffocating, going under fast.

On the face of it, his reaction made no sense because she’d given him what he wanted—her love, her commitment. But it was getting what he wanted that made him so afraid.

Because deep inside, he was the fourteen-year-old boy who believed he should’ve died so his twelve-year-old brother—the best friend he’d ever had—could live. He was the kid sick with survivors’ guilt who desperately wanted his father to acknowledge him instead of choosing to abandon him. He was a man who’d been taught that life didn’t give you what you wanted, or if it did, it took it away again.

The past. Anxiety. Fucked-up fears. Caden knew it, but he couldn’t fight it. His heart wasn’t whole. His feet weren’t steady. His brain wasn’t right.

He wasn’t right. And in that state, he didn’t trust himself with loving her.

He grasped her hands and pulled them away from his chest. “Makenna, I—” But no further words came out, because it was like his brain had frozen. He knew what he felt, but he didn’t know what to say. How to put it into words, or whether he even should. He was f*cking paralyzed.

“You don’t have to say it back,” she said, something sad and maybe even a little disappointed flashing through her eyes. “I didn’t say it with an expectation that you would say it back.”

So she’d expected him to fail her. And that’s what he was doing. Like he needed more proof that she deserved better.

He gasped a breath, all the stress of the past week crashing down on him like a ton of bricks. Or maybe it was more like a house of cards, because in this moment Caden felt like a f*cking fool to have ever believed that he was capable of being one of two when his half of that equation was so damn damaged.

“Makenna, it’s just, this is all…” Shaking his head, he stepped back, out of her grasp. His skin was suddenly too sensitive to allow her touch. Hell, the clothes on his back felt too rough, too heavy, too confining. “It’s just a lot. It’s just fast,” he said, not even sure of the words coming out of his mouth.

A look of hurt flashed across her pretty face, and even though she tried to hide it, tried to recover, he knew what he’d seen. “It doesn’t have to mean anything—”

“Yes, it does,” he bit out, hating that his emotional bullshit was making her discount her feelings. To try to make him feel better. “It means f*cking everything.” He grasped at his chest, the lack of oxygen setting off a burn right in the center. His head throbbed out a punishing downbeat.

“Caden—”

“I’m sorry,” he said, wincing as he tried to suck in a deep breath. “I can’t…I gotta…go. I just need some space. Okay? Some time?” His fight or flight instinct was kicking him in the ass. Hard. “I…just need some space. I’m sorry.”

Then he was out the door, his whole world imploding around him. Because he’d probably just destroyed the best thing he’d ever had. But maybe that was as it should be, since he clearly couldn’t handle it anyway.

And Makenna deserved someone who could.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN



Makenna stared at her apartment door? the sound of it closing still echoing loudly all around her. What the hell just happened?

She clutched her stomach, just that moment realizing she’d never even gotten to the point of telling Caden about the baby. And, Christ, how was she supposed to do that now? When hearing that she loved him sent him into a full-out panic attack. Never in all the time she’d known him had she ever seen his face go so pale and distant and just…blank out like that. Like she was looking at a shell of the man she knew.