“I didn’t tell anyone, Kacey. I held it all in and drowned myself until I got caught. And even then, I still tried to say I didn’t have a problem. I can’t change what I did. All I can do is say it won’t happen again and that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, and she could hear the desperation in his voice.

Holding his gaze, she could barely see him through her tear-flooded eyes. She knew he was sorry—that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she not only felt rejected, she felt used. Closing her eyes, her tears leaked out as she said in a shaking voice, “What do you want from me, Jordie?”

She opened her eyes, the tears streaming down her face, and all she could do was think what she was going to say when he said what she expected.

“You. I want you,” he said sternly, like she knew he would, though what surprised her was that his eyes clouded with tears. But she had to stay strong.

“That’s the thing you’ve always had—me. But you used me for sex and someone to keep you warm instead of loving me back the way I loved you.”

“No, I didn’t, and I never intended for you to feel that way. I was fucked up, Kacey. I wasn’t someone even I could love. How could I expect you to love me? I’m—”

“You’re sorry,” she said for him, and he nodded. “I know, and I’ve forgiven you, Jordie, I have. But it hurts and I need to process all this before I even try to decide to give you another chance. Because, with you, I don’t think, I act, and that’s how I get in trouble. That’s what leaves me heartbroken. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t trust me enough to help you.”

“Because I was spinning out of control and I refused to take you with me, so I pushed you away. I didn’t know how to admit to you how fucked up I was. I was already a gimp, if I admitted that I was thinking of killing myself, how would you have handled it? I couldn’t expect—”

“I would have loved you. I would have helped you, but you wouldn’t allow me to.”

“Because I was too prideful, too scared of how you made me feel. And, instead of doing the right thing, I always do the wrong. I know that. What I’m asking for is another chance to do all the right things for you.”

Shaking her head, she looked down, her tears staining her shirt as his words played over and over in her head. He was saying everything she wanted. Everything she had been praying for, but something told her to step back. She couldn’t just jump in and trust that he wouldn’t hurt her again. Too much had happened for her to be so careless. But how would she ever know? A relationship hardly ever played out the way someone hoped. Love wasn’t a Cinderella tale, it was hard and it hurt.

Looking up at him, she blinked away her tears before reaching for her purse. “Jordie, I want to lean across the table and kiss you, I do. I want to ride off into the sunset and know that we’ll live happily ever after. Believe me, that’s something I truly want. But you want me right now. Because of how it was when you had me before, you know I’m good for you. But what’s gonna happen when you meet someone else? When you decide you’re done with me? Then what? Or if you hit another dark spot and you don’t want to share it with me, pushing me away in the end. Jordie, I’ll be right back where you left me. I’ll be heartbroken and alone.”

He was shaking his head before she even finished. “No, that won’t happen,” he said. She looked up as a tear slowly rolled down his face, and it honestly murdered her to see it. He never cried. Never. But with his heart in his eyes, he admitted, “I’ve learned from my mistakes, I have. And, baby, you’re it.”

But could she believe him?

Kacey’s tears were falling in sheets down her face and it was killing him to see. He hated when she cried. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it hurt. It was like little daggers were falling from her eyes and stabbing him over and over again in the chest. He wanted to comfort her, take her in his arms and tell her how sorry he was, but he didn’t know what else to say. He’d said everything he had in his heart, and all he could do was pray it was enough.

The way she was looking at him though, it didn’t seem like it was.

It took everything for him to do that. He didn’t care to share his secrets, his issues, but he would do it for her. He would do anything for her but, for some reason, she wasn’t seeing that. She was caught up on one detail that, yes, was shitty, but he saw no other way. If he hadn’t pushed her away, then she would have been subjected to all the shit he was feeling, and he couldn’t do that to her. It wouldn’t have been fair. He loved her more than that.

Clutching her purse to her chest like a shield against him, she nodded. “I need to go.”

His heart sank. “But you haven’t eaten,” he said, grasping at anything to keep her there. He wasn’t done talking. There had to be something to reach her, to make her realize how shitty a place he’d been in and how he could never have been the man she needed.

She made a face. “I’m not hungry.”

Oh yeah, he was in deep shit. Those words never left her lips. She was always hungry.

“Kace, please don’t leave.”

But she was already getting out of the booth. He took her hand, stopping her, and she looked down at him, adjusting her purse as he held her hand, his thumb slowly covering each bump of her knuckles on her hand.

“Please,” he asked, but she shook her head.