Page 52 of When the Walls Come Down
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His head tipped back and the saddest, unfocused brown eyes I’d ever seen locked with mine. I hated seeing him like that, but I had to admit there was a sick sense of validation knowing he was just as twisted up as I was about all of this.
“Peach,” he breathed as though he’d seen a mirage in the desert.
I wanted to hug him. No, fuck that. I wanted to scale the top of that wall and climb into his lap. It didn’t have to be sexual. I didn’t care if we just sat there and bullshitted for the rest of the night.
I shouldn’t have looked. Not seeing him had been easier.
My chest ached as I dropped down to the chair. “You should probably go to bed, Shane.”
He groaned. “I don’t want to go to bed. My sheets smell like you.”
“Come on. I don’t smell that bad.”
“For the last few days, it was the best smell. Tonight? It’s the fucking worst.”
I sighed and used my foot to slide the chair out of my way before sinking down into the corner next to him, nothing but one layer of brick dividing us.
I picked up a stray Tic Tac and turned it with my fingers. “This isn’t fun for me, either, you know.”
“Could have fooled me. You didn’t even put up a fight when I broke things off. I gave you an out and you were gone before the words had stopped echoing.”
“Is that what you wanted? A fight? You were right, Shane. This isn’t going to end well. What is there to argue about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to feel like I wasn’t the only one struggling with it.”
I dropped my head back and peered up at the ceiling. “I put a hole in my wall tonight. Does that help?”
“Holy shit. You punched the wall? You little savage. Wait-a-min-ute. Are you okay?”
I smiled. “I’m fine. I threw my shoe at it. But I’m going to have to pay to get it fixed. And without a job, that’s going to be a struggle.”
We both fell silent for a long minute. There it was. Bay Brewing—the true wall dividing us.
My chest got tight, and I gave up on the Tic Tac, opting to pick the polish off my nails instead. “I don’t want you to get fired. But you have to know that there is nothing I won’t do to keep this job. When I moved out here, it was more than just about Bay Brewing. It was all the opportunities that came with it. New town. New people. New adventures. Atlanta is great, and to some, it’s the big city with unlimited opportunities. But to me, it will always be the city that trapped my mother. She died when I was four. Cancer.”
His voice was thick as he rumbled, “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I don’t really remember her. My dad wasn’t around long after she died, so my siblings raised me. Don’t get me wrong. As pitiful as I’m sure this sounds, I had a good life. My family is everything to me. But I watched them all grow up, desperate for the security of a stable mother and father they never had. My brother became a cop because it gave him a sense of control. And my sisters all settled down with a man and kids by the time they were my age. But that isn’t who I am.”
“Then who are you, Maggie?” he asked so genuine that it made my vision swim.
I packed the emotion down and replied, “You know, sometimes I’m not really sure. But I can tell you who I’m not. I don’t want to be my mom. I’m terrified I’ll wake up one day in sixty years and it will all be over and I’ll feel nothing but regret. I moved here to start over. To live the life my mother never had. But then I met you. And it sucks because, yeah, I like you. If you want the truth, I more than like you, but I’m sorry, Shane. I can’t choose a man I barely know over the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Jesus, I’m not asking you to choose me, Maggie. And I am sorry you lost your mother, and I want nothing more than for you to be happy and have the best fucking life you can imagine. Because you deserve that. But you aren’t the only one who came to San Francisco to start over. I didn’t even choose to start over. Fuck…” he trailed off.
I could almost imagine him thrusting a hand through the top of his hair. His jaw hard and his brows furrowed. My brain told me all I had to do was walk next door and we could have this conversation face-to-face. But my heart told me that the wall between us was the best protection I would have to keep from breaking.
