Page 142 of Heal Me, Love Me

“I do,” he said quickly.

I shook my head because if that were true, none of this made sense.

“I do,” he repeated. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t stand there and make this about me not loving you enough.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” He wiped his face, and his hand fell uselessly to his side. “And I can’t stay here while you think that.”

“Keaton.”

He shook his head.

I didn’t move closer. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the second I crossed the room, we’d both use touching as an excuse to stop thinking.

“Then come to Tampa.”

He looked away. “I can’t move across the country right now. I’m still recovering, Phil just agreed to train me, and Marcos thinks Titan is where I need to be.”

“Then I’ll come home more. We’ll plan the flights around our camps.”

“We’ve been planning everything around training and flights. It isn’t enough.”

“I spent four years without you. I don’t know how to go back to that now that we finally have another chance.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then look at me and tell me there isn’t another way.”

He turned back, and I thought I had him.

“There isn’t.” He reached for the door handle, then stopped. I thought he might turn around and give me one more chance to ask him to stay, but he didn’t. “Bye, Rowan.”

Then he opened the door and left. It closed behind him, and I stayed where I was, staring at it as if waiting long enough might make it open again. That he’d come back, tell me he couldn’t go through with it, and I’d cross the room to pull him to me before either of us could say another word.

But the handle didn’t move.

I crossed the room anyway and stopped in front of the door. My hand lifted, but I couldn’t make myself grab the knob because opening the door meant chasing him, and chasing him wouldn’t change what he’d already said.

In LA, I’d been the one who left. I’d walked away before he could explain or stop me, before I had to look at him and admit how badly it hurt. Now I knew what that door had felt like from the other side.

He loved me, yet he’d still left.

I braced a hand against the doorframe and bent forward, trying to breathe through the ache in my ribs and the pain that had nothing to do with the fight. When my legs gave out, I sankto the carpet and covered my face with both hands, but the tears still came.

I’d spent four years missing Keaton, then somehow got him back.

Now I had to learn how to live without him all over again.

25

Keaton

Four MonthsLater

I stoodin the middle of the cage while Coach Phil listed all the ways I was fucking up. Apparently, there was a shit-ton.

He circled me slowly, arms folded across his chest, his expression unreadable. I’d watched hours of footage of his fights over the years to study his moves and listened to interviews in which he broke down his footwork and timing. The man was practically a fighting genius, with reflexes that still didn’t seem entirely human, even in retirement.Now he was standing a few feet away from me, shaking his head as if my mistakes were his own failures.