I should put my phone away. Shove it somewhere I couldn’t see it. Hear it.
Instead, I watched my thumb swipe across the screen. Watched it tap on the glass.
Watched my fingers form a reply. “Got it.”
I hit send, incapable of doing anything else.
A second after the message was delivered, my phone began ringing, Ronnie’s face appearing on the cracked screen.
I almost answered it. I really did. But at the sight of her beautiful smiling face splintered and disfigured by all the cracks in the screen, I didn’t.
Those cracks…the damage…
Swallowing at the lump in my throat, I hit decline.
The phone fell silent.
The only sound I could hear was my hammering heart.
Closing my eyes, I slumped back on the bed, bunching my fists over and over. I felt sick. Cold and numb and sick and angry.
But more than anything, I missed her. I missed who I was when I was with her. I missed the certainty she brought into my every minute, the belief that the world was a good place. The knowledge I had a reason to keep breathing every day.
I missed her.
I drew an image of her in my mind. It was sheer torture to do so, to do this to myself, but I could help it.
I saw her.
She smiled at me, held out her arms to me.
I dragged in a slow breath, wishing I could feel those arms around me now.
In my head, she moved her fingers to the buttons on her shirt. Released them. One after the other.
My body stirred. My cock did the same.
How fucked up was I that I was imagining my girl, getting hard to the thought of her right now? With what I was about to do, how could I possibly be turned on?
But it had always been this way with Ronnie. Since the day I first met her… How many times had I thought of her and gotten a boner at the most inappropriate time? Why should today be any different?
I lay stretched on the bed and saw her in my head, watched her undress, watched her play with her breasts, her nipples, her pussy, her gaze on me, my name on her lips…
Fuck, what was I doing here? Why wasn’t I with her?
We could move to fucking Brazil, Australia. Christ, we could move anywhere. I didn’t have to be here. I didn’t have to be away from her. We could move and leave my shit past life behind.
Why was I here? Why had I left her?
Because Rufie had declared war on me. And if he couldn’t get to me, if he couldn’t get to Ronnie, he’d go after my mom, Ronnie’s parents…
He’d go after anyone in my life that meant anything to me.
And I didn’t run away. I wouldn’t run away.
I would end it.
That’s what I had to do.