Me: I’m coming home tomorrow.
It’s 1:00 am in L.A. She’s not going to be up, but that’s okay. She’ll respond in the morning. My fingers type American Airlines and I scroll through departure times. There’s an 8:00 am nonstop flight to Los Angeles. My fingers hover over the option, and before I can talk myself out of it, I make the reservation.
Standing, I move to the refrigerator for a bottle of water, wondering how I’ll tell Cade that I’m going to leave today. I know I have to be honest, but have I ever been one-hundred-percent honest with anyone, even myself? Trusted someone so much that I let all my demons out?
No.
I haven’t. The closest I’ve come is with Cade and Patricia, but I always held back, and now, I never will because he doesn’t care enough to do anything more than fuck me.
Taking a drink of water, sighing when it cools me down, I set the bottle on the counter and make the walk back to the bedroom.
As I do, my eyes take in the sparseness of his dwelling. God, his dead brother Vinny’s apartment has more furniture than Cade’s. It makes sense that he can’t offer me anything when, from his home alone, I can see he offers himself nothing too.
Cade stirs and kicks the white sheet off him. My eyes memorize every inch. I watch his hand reach over to my side as if even in sleep, he wants me near, and for a second, I almost falter.
But I can’t.
I need to be able to think. If I stay here, I’ll let him distract me with sex while I keep hiding years of pain and abuse. Which is why I need to leave. It’s time I heal. I’m finally strong enough to do it. I guess I have him to thank for that too.
I sit down on the side of the bed. “Cade?”
His ridiculously long eyelashes flutter open and he grins, his dimples flashing.For me.Because he’s happy to see me…
My heart skips a beat but I tame it. Sex won’t fix things. It won’t.
“You okay?” he mumbles, grin fading when he takes in my expression. His hands reach for me, though.
“I need to talk to you.” I can’t stop myself from caressing his hair. The waves seem to have a life of their own as they wrap around my fingers. “I’m going back to L.A.” Even to my ears, my voice leaks exhaustion.
This time, he sits up, but he’s still blinking back sleep. “Huh?”
“I need some space to think.” I bite my lip at the confusion in his expression. “I can’t do that here.”
“What’s wrong?” he rasps. “What can I do?”
He has no idea that he’s a part of the problem.
I want nothing more than for him to fix everything, but if he can’t see that he fucked up and it’s made me insecure, that it’s made me need certain reassurances from him, then there’s no hope. All it’d have taken was “I love you.” It wouldn’t have made me sleep easier, but it would have made me feel as if it were a step forward.
Instead, I’m just staying in his bed rather than an AirBnb and replacing therapy with a ton of orgasms.
So, I just say, “A lot of things are wrong.”
He grabs my hand. “You’re not going to L.A. Not after everything. The last thing you need is to be alone. I can—”
My finger on his lips stops him and I lean forward to kiss him. “I won’t be alone.”
He scoffs. “Those people don’t—”
That pricks my temper. “Those peopleare my family. Just like you and Kitty have your ups and downs, but she has your back, my family has mine too. I’ve fucked up and made it hard on them. Sometimes, you run out of free passes, and it’s time I made things right. With them. With myself.”
“What the fuck, Belle? You can’t just wake me up and tell me you’re leaving without discussing it—”
I scoff, “Sure I can. You’re someone I’m hooking up with; you’re not my man, Cade.” Hurt leaches into his expression, but he defined the lines of our relationship, not me. Then, I feel bad because I could have brought this up sooner, mentioned that I needed more from him… On a deep sigh, I mutter, “I’m not Belle and I’m not Cindy. That’s my point. I don’t know who I am. But trying to pretend that I’m fine is not helping me.”
“I’ve never needed you to pretend to be anything other than yourself. You’re Isabelle. You need time? Fine, you can stay with Kitty—”
I shake my head. “Cade, listen to me. My whole life, I have been pretending to be someone, someone who isn’t me. Do you get that? I’ve pretended for so long that I don’t know who the real me is. And I can’t learn here, in a place that made me into what I am today. Not without a support system. I need to go home.” This is it, time to lay it on the line. “What I do know is that I love you, but that’s not enough if I’m on my own here.”