THE DEFINITION OF power is the ability to do something or act in a particular way. Contrary to what we might believe, we held more power than we thought. One wrong choice, one wrong decision, could land us in a lifetime of regret. Power directly correlated with control—both could be dangerous; both could lead to our undoing. There were things we were faced with in this life that were simply beyond our control, like who walked into our lives, but it was within our power to decide who we let stay and who we refused to let go.
Three weeks ago, Cassi had made a decision. She allowed me to walk away. And now, I was choosing to let her go. Not because I didn’t love her, but because I loved her enough to realize she deserved better, someone worthy of all the love she had to give.
She deserved to find someone like Adam who could help give her life direction, help steer her through the treacherous waters. Not someone like me, stranded on the shore.
Wild hair clung to her soaked cheeks, and I watched as she ran away, her hands coming up to wipe away the evidence of hurt.
Hurt I had put there.
My fingers curled around the wooden frame surrounding the door, a means to prevent myself from chasing after her. With every step she took, I fought the urge to call out to her, explain to her it wasn’t what it looked like because how the hell could I ever bring myself to touch another woman after knowing what it felt like to have her in my arms.
But I didn’t.
I stood there, without words, without a single breath, without a beat in my heart, because she was walking away, taking every last one of them with her.
When she finally got in her car and drove off, her small silver Prius zooming down the street, I forced myself into the house and closed the door. My palm flattened against the oak, and I dropped my head forward, making a vain attempt at controlling the moisture clouding my eyes.
What did I do? What had I done? Why hadn’t I known?
Of its own accord, my hand curled into a fist, white-hot pain searing across my knuckles as they connected with the wood.
Blistering. Breaking. Bleeding.
I should’ve fucking known. How had I not known?
“What did you do?” The tremor in Vanessa’s voice shocked me out of my self-loathing, and I pivoted on my heels, meeting the bewilderment etched on her makeup-less face. Her lips parted, trembling in confusion.
“You need to leave.” It wasn’t a request. She needed to go. Right now. I was seconds away from completely losing my shit, and I’d be damned if I was going to crumble to dust in front of her.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She stepped in front of me, blocking the path that led to the safe confines of my bedroom. “Not until you explain why you let her walk away believing something happened between us.”
“I want you to leave.”
“No.” Defiant, she held her ground. Her eyes searched mine for answers I refused to give, and when she made no attempt to leave, my impatience turned to frustration.
“Get out!” It echoed on a roar as I tore out of her grasp, spinning so quickly she stumbled on her feet. Remorse collided with the rest of my emotions, threatening to explode. “Just get out of my fucking house.”
Straightening herself, she shoved at my chest and studied my face, the disappointment on hers slaying me like a double-edged sword. Indignation and disbelief deepened her tone. “You broke her heart, Sam.” A frown twitched at the corner of her lips. “You just ripped it clear out of her chest and used me to stomp all over it, and I want to know why.”
Pain radiated in sharp bursts across my jaw as I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not explaining anything to you.” How could I? Telling Vanessa the reasons for my decision meant admitting the truth, and I wasn’t ready to do that. What Cassi and I had was ours, only ours, and I needed to hold on to those precious, untainted memories for a little while longer.
“Are you serious right now? You’re making me look like the villain here, and that’s not fair. That’s. Not. Fair.” She shoved me again, the strength behind her push weakening before she completely distanced herself and hugged her arms over her chest. “You poured your heart out last night and you’re just going to let her go.” She shook her head, disappointed.
There was no hiding my despondency. Vanessa knew. She knew how hopelessly in love I was with Cassi, but she couldn’t know this. “Just because I let her go doesn’t mean I wanted to.”
“Then why did you?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
I stared into her eyes—dark blue and challenging. “Why are you doing this? Why do you even care?”
“Why do I care? Maybe because I have a heart and feelings. Maybe I know what it’s like to hurt, to want a love that is as obvious as the one you and her share. Maybe it’s because not once in the three years we were together had you ever looked at me the way you looked at her.” She stood, firm and unmoving. “Maybe I’m trying to save you from yourself.”
I swiped a hand over my mouth, gripping my jaw. Her honesty and the truth it delivered knocked me back, and I quickly caught my footing, brushing past her.
Her small feet stomped angrily behind me, and the whip of cotton at my head caused me to pause long enough to glance in the direction it’d come from. Dressed in nothing but her bra and thong, Vanessa marched through my living room and down the hall to my laundry room, yanking the dryer door open and fishing out her clothes.
“I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact you carelessly broke her heart or that you haven’t changed.” She shrugged her shirt over her head before balancing her weight on one foot and slipping a leg into her too-tight jeans. “When are you going to stop keeping people at arm’s length and realize that’s not how relationships work? You can’t just let people in when it’s convenient for you.”
Offended by her judgmental assessment, I scoffed. “Oh, because suddenly you’re the expert on relationships.”
“No, but at least I admit when I’m wrong.” Buttoning her jeans, she headed toward my living room. I followed behind her, watching as she grabbed her coat and purse from the chair where she’d placed them the previous evening. “You know, maybe she is better off without you.”
I flinched against the sting of her words, their veracity cutting me open and gutting me raw.
Strutting over to the door, she grabbed the knob, and as she stepped out onto the porch, she peered at me over her shoulder. “You’re a coward, Sam. One day, you’re going to realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, and by then, it’s going to be too late.”
The walls shook as the door slammed closed.
And I stood there, long after she’d left, knowing it already was.
ELEVEN HOURS HAD passed since Vanessa stormed out of my house, and yet her words still lingered, taunting me. She’d been right. I was a coward. But there was at least a half dozen other adjectives one could add to that list. Hypocrite immediately surfaced to mind. My entire life I’d resented my father for the unnecessary distance he’d created between us, but I was no better than him. I had become the master of pushing people away—always keeping them on the perimeter of my life and never fully allowing them to enter my world. My closest friends consisted of a prepubescent ten-year-old boy and a postmenopausal coffee shop barista, and even they thought I was in dire need of an intervention.
Perhaps they, too, were right.
But they weren’t me.
They weren’t in my situation, and they didn’t even know the half of it, the guilt I battled, especially at night when the beating of my heart was the loudest, the way it rioted beneath my ribs and echoed in my ears. It had been that way since my transplant, but then I met Cassi, and everything changed. For the few, short joyous months we’d been together it was as if the heart hadn’t been trapped but belonged.
It belonged to me.
And the shy, beautiful woman, who had given it every reason to beat, had been mine.
She’d been mine.
Crazy how one single moment—one unspoken word, one simple misunderstanding—could alter your life forever. How your actions directly and indirectly impacted others and how you were forced to spend every last minute wishing you could relive that exact second, that you had the power to not only take it back but to make it right.
God, I wanted to make it right.
I needed to make this right.
Cassi deserved the truth. The whole truth. She needed to know I hadn’t slept with Vanessa, but more importantly, I needed her to understand why I’d let her walk away believing I did.
My only hope now was that she wouldn’t hate me for everything I was about to confess.
THE ORANGE GLOW of daylight slowly faded, bleeding into an ink-blue canvas as I hurried up the stone path to Cassi’s front porch. Coming to a halt in front of her door, I immediately knocked before taking a step back. A lump of dread swelled in my throat. I attempted to force a breath past it, the air not fully making it to my lungs but hitching mid-inhale at the unclicking of the lock and the sliding of the deadbolt.
“Jenny?” I frowned, confusion knitting my brows. “Is, um … is Cassi here?”
“What are you doing here?” Bitterness sharpened her tone, and she glared at me with firm hostility. Fair enough. I deserved whatever hate she wanted to throw at me.
“I really need to talk to her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
She began to shut the door, closing me out, and my arm shot into the space to prevent it from completely slamming in my face. “Look, I know what you’re doing—playing the protective sister role—and I get it. I respect you for that. I really do, but I need to talk to her.”
Her body visibly tensed, ready for a challenge. “The only thing you need to do is leave.”
“You don’t understan—”
A caustic laugh erupted from her mouth. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how someone can profess their love and then turn around and sleep with their ex not even three weeks later.”
“Jenny—”
“I thought you were different. I defended you.” She clamped down on her jaw, folding her arms over her chest and breathing in through her nose, holding it for a few seconds before expelling it all on a frustrated exhale. “Damn it, I defended you! I realized how hard it must have been for you to feel like you were constantly having to live up to Adam’s memory, to have to share her with him, but all she needed was time. Why couldn’t you just give her time?”
My voice hardened. “I would have. I would have given her all the time she needed, and she knows that.”
All I’d wanted that day was her reassurance, to know I meant something to her, that I wasn’t simply filling the shadows Adam had left behind. I wanted to know I was more than second best. For whatever reason, she hadn’t been able to give that to me, but still, I had walked away with the hope that we’d somehow work through the mess, because I was in love with her.
I was so fucking hopelessly in love with her.
And then I came face to face with Adam, and any hope I’d had crashed along with the future that was once again too far out of reach.
“She blamed herself, you know. For his death.” Jenny licked her lips, wincing as if her admittance was painful. “It’s why she couldn’t fully move on. It wasn’t about her loving him more than you. It was about her feeling guilty for being happy. It was about her feeling responsible for putting him in that damn box six feet below ground.” She glanced away from me briefly and then back again, her composure regained. “You had to go back to your ex, didn’t you? You had—”
“I didn’t,” I said on a rush, dejecting her assumption, my thoughts not formulating fast enough. “I didn’t sleep with her. Vanessa means nothing to me, and that’s the honest-to-God truth. She stopped by last night to talk about work. That’s it. That’s all it was.”
Jenny sneered, but I ignored her, continuing with an explanation I wasn’t sure she cared to hear.
“Before I realized it, she was several beers in and wasted. She got sick all over herself, and so I gave her some clothing to wear and allowed her to spend the night because she was too intoxicated to drive. She slept on the couch. My couch. Nowhere near me or my room or my bed. When Cassi showed up this morning, Vanessa just happened to get to the door before I did.”
Jenny seemed to consider everything I’d said, and my eyes pleaded with her to believe me.
“So, you’re telling me if you’d made it to the door first, you wouldn’t have allowed my sister to walk away believing you’d slept with Vanessa?”
My lips pressed together, my lack of agreement providing her with her answer.
“I like to think I’m a good judge of character, but I was wrong about you. I thought maybe you’d be good for her. Maybe you’d be good for each other.” She huffed out through her nose and shook her head. “Adam was a good person. It’s a shame his heart didn’t go to someone more deserving.”
My heart froze and then thrummed painfully beneath my ribs. I’d always thought the same, more so over the last three weeks, but hearing the words spoken aloud, and from Jenny, of all people, felt like an unexpected blow to the chest. “You think I don’t know that?” I said on a whisper, swallowing the intense ache. “That’s exactly why I let her walk away.” Every ounce of restraint I’d gathered at hiding my emotions slipped, the thin threads fraying, unraveling, disintegrating. “I need to talk to her.”
“You need to leave.”
“No, damn it. Give me a chance to explain.”
The door began to close once again, stopping only as Cassi’s choked sob poured into the air.
“Stop it! Would you two please stop!” She looked at me from where she stood behind her sister, eyes puffy and sore, lips quivering, and cheeks soaked with tears I’d put there.
“Cassi.” Not caring that I wasn’t invited inside, I sidestepped around Jenny and walked right over to her. Desperation made the muscles in my arms twitch. The overwhelming need to pull her into my chest, to feel her heart beating against mine, was like a drug, impossible to resist.
Would she allow me to hold her? After everything I’d done? Everything I’d failed to say? Perhaps if I touched her, she’d know how sorry I was—she’d know I was in utter fucking turmoil and this was killing me.
Taking a chance, I reached up to cup her face. The moment my skin grazed hers, she took an immediate step back, her entire body jarring away from me.
Grief squeezed my heart.
“Cass, I didn’t sleep with her.” I said the words, but even to my ears, they sounded empty, like they didn’t matter. No explanation would possibly make this situation right.
“Then why?” she cried, the tremor in her voice undeniable. “Why did you let me walk away believing you did? Why didn’t you stop me?”
Tell her, Sam. You need to tell her.
Another sob ripped from her throat, breaking our silence as her tears flowed in an endless stream. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Cass ...” I wanted to drop to my knees at her feet, to beg for her forgiveness, not only for yesterday or the last several weeks, but for the things I’d yet to divulge. “Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.”
“Goddamn it, Sam, just tell me!”
Blowing out a breath and tapping my foot at my growing impatience, I landed another knock on Vanessa’s door. Where the hell was she? It wasn’t like her to miss a gallery showing, especially on a new exhibit, and the fact she’d yet to answer any of my calls or reply to my texts added to my concern.
“Vanessa!” I pounded my fist harder this time, and when I was met with more silence, I grabbed my keys from my coat pocket and let myself into her apartment. Light from the corner lamp brightened her living room, and her purse and keys rested on the small end table beside the couch. She was still home. Relief loosened my muscles as I started down the narrow hall and toward her bedroom, taking a detour as I heard the shower running in the bathroom.
Hot steam billowed from the cracks in the frame, and a soft feminine moan floated through the air.
What the hell?
Confusion narrowed my brows. “Vanessa?” I thrust the door open, seeing the silhouette of two naked bodies moving intimately behind the foggy glass pane. “What the fuck?”
The bile in my stomach turned.
“Oh my God!” Vanessa scrambled to her feet from where she’d been pinned to the tile wall, her lips red and swollen from the mouth of a man I’d recognized as the gallery’s largest and wealthiest purchaser. Figured. Money really could buy anything, couldn’t it? Bruises from where he’d grabbed her hips, driving his into hers, over and over again, marred her skin. Too bad the penitence on her face was overshadowed by the shock of discovery. “Sam. It isn’t what it looks like.”
It wasn’t what it looked like?
A condescending laugh clawed up my throat.
Sure as hell looked like fucking to me.
A thousand emotions swarmed me at once, but I didn’t know how to act on any of them. I wanted to wipe the smug grin off the bastard’s face, and I wanted to drive a knife through Vanessa’s chest like she’d done to me, because regardless of how distant and closed off I’d kept my heart, this hurt.
This. Fucking. Hurt.
Feeling sick, I shook my head and darted out of her apartment.
Who had I been kidding? I’d been a fool to think what we had was real. Three years meant nothing when neither of us had been fully invested. Right?
The late hour descended out of nowhere as I stepped back into the quiet town, the last words my mother had spoken echoing louder than they ever had before.
“How does your heart feel?”
The question rattled around my skull as my feet hurried along the wet and cracked sidewalk at the same rate that goddamn organ in my chest thumped against my ribs: fast and erratic, mildly delirious, and completely out of tune with the rest of my muddled thoughts.
Numb.
My heart felt numb. Numb to the feeling of betrayal—to the loss of a future that had never been in my grasp. The warm, late spring air whirled across my face as a thousand “hows” and “whys” screamed in my mind, taking up any and all available space left for rational thinking.
How could she?
I screwed my eyes shut, forcing away the bitter memories that had sent me bolting out the front door, only to reopen them as my body collided into a solid wall of another. Strong hands gripped my shoulders, breaking my fall and shaking me out of my stupor.
“Hey. Watch where you’re going, buddy. People are walking here.”
“Sorry.” I regained my footing and shook my head, the apology pouring from my lips subconsciously and with little sincerity. I was too drunk on emotion, too caught up in the disastrous aftermath of the last fifteen minutes to give a damn. Horns blared and the swishing of tires zooming through puddles on the street created a white noise that I prayed would serve as a distraction.
A distraction from what, though?
My life and how incredibly hopeless it seemed?
I stepped off the sidewalk and into the empty crosswalk. Bright lights blinded my vision as clarity and my life’s greatest moments flashed like a cinematic movie reel before my eyes.
Tires screeched. Metal twisted. Screams cried out in the not too far distance. The piercing sound of shattering glass rang in my ears as it rained down on the slick and glistening asphalt, and the arresting and potent smell of gasoline suffocated my lungs as it coated the moisture-laden air.
Everything that had happened in my feeble existence no longer mattered.
Not when the entire world dulled to black.
Several moments passed before I peeled my eyes open, my surroundings slowly shifting into focus. Shock and adrenaline rooted my feet to the pavement as my heart thundered beneath my ribs.
Fuck. No. Please, God, no.
The absence of bodies climbing from their mangled vehicles knocked me out of my trance, and my legs ate up the distance from where I stood and over to the silver SUV, obscured by a cloud of smoke. Its horn blared mercilessly in the dead of night, and the closer I came, the harder it was to breathe. Hands shaking, I yanked on the handle of the door, struggling to pry it open.
A strength I didn’t know I possessed took hold, and I pushed with everything I had in me, forcing the crushed metal back on its hinges, finally reaching the elderly man trapped inside.
Groaning, he rolled his head in my direction, a look of gratitude flashing in his ancient eyes as he drank in my sudden appearance.
“Are you okay? Are you able to walk?”
He gave me a small nod, and with a frail hand clutching his heaving chest, he managed to get his seat belt unbuckled. He swung his legs in my direction, and I wrapped an arm around his slim waist, guiding him over to an empty bench on the sidewalk.
Frantic, I fished my phone out of my pocket and thrust it into his hands. “Call 9-1-1.”
I didn’t wait for him to reply before I was off again, heading toward the vehicle that upon closer inspection had been pinned between the SUV and a utility pole. The driver side door was impossible to reach, and so I darted around to the rear passenger side, only to discover the car was locked. The window had been partially shattered, the glass a web of lines branching from the center point of impact.
I dropped my head and blew out a quick breath.
This was going to hurt.
Gritting my teeth, I smashed my elbow through the window, wincing against the slice of pain as it tore through the flesh of my arm.
Crawling my way around several deployed airbags and a battlefield of broken glass, I finally reached the driver ...
Cassi stared at me, eyes wide and mouth agape, as she searched my face for any signs of deception. And I’d almost wished she’d find them, because having her hating me for lying was better than having her hating me for this—for stealing her entire world.
For the longest moment, we stood there saying nothing, the unbearable silence between us so thick and heavy you could’ve heard a pin drop … or a heart break … or the future you'd always wanted slowly slip from your grasp. Because that’s what I saw when I looked at her. A future. A future that was never meant to be mine but his, theirs.
One I’d stolen away from them.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I cleared my throat, choking out the words as I recalled that night, the image of Adam, and the blood everywhere. “It was him, Cass. It was Adam in that car.”
Cassi’s lower lip began to tremble, her head shaking in denial, and I was desperate to pull her close. I was desperate to hold on to her, because with every passing second, with every syllable spoken, I felt her slipping further and further out of reach. I was losing her.
“It wasn’t your fault he died. It was mine. My mind was so fucked up after walking in on Vanessa having an affair I wasn’t paying attention. I stepped right into the middle of the street, and if he hadn’t swerved, he would’ve hit me.” I paused. “He saved my life. Not once, but twice.”
“You’ve known this entire time?” Her voice cracked, small lines appearing on her forehead and denting her brow. “You’ve known this entire time, and you’ve never told me?”
“No.” I immediately dismissed her claim. “I swear to you I didn’t know. Not until the night we broke up. I was walking out of your room and saw the picture of you two on the dresser—that’s when I’d realized it’d been Adam.” I took an unsteady step toward her, shoving my hands through my hair to prevent myself from touching her. “I tried to figure out who he was. I went to the hospital, but they refused to disclose anything. I didn’t even know his name. God, I didn’t even know his name. I went home with the intention of going back the next day to try and find out more information, but then I got the call that a heart was available. I never got the chance to discover who he was or if he even survived.”
The oxygen in the room slowly depleted, and my ability to breathe waned as I watched her try to make sense of everything I’d admitted.
“I’ve wondered about him every single day since that night, Cass. I’ve lived in the dark not knowing a damn thing about the guy, but I’ve never stopped wondering, never stopped feeling guilty.”
Her gaze flicked from my face down to my chest where it lingered, and I saw it. I saw the moment she withdrew, the moment I completely lost her. Her knees buckled, and I moved to catch her, but Jenny got to her first, pulling her into her arms.
She turned her icy blue eyes toward me, seething. “You need to leave. You need to get the hell out of this house before I call the police and have them physically remove you.”
I swallowed at her threat and took a fumbling step back, taking one more look at Cassi.
Our gazes met.
Wordlessly, I turned and walked out the door, leaving my heart cradled in the palms of her hands—because regardless of how this ended, with her is where it forever belonged.