She was crying. I knew she was, but I barely saw her tears. I couldn’t focus on that. Then she spoke and her answer gutted me. Her truth.

Only . . .

What if it wasn’t? What if Joey is right? What if we were both saying shit we didn’t mean, both of us reacting, being rash and thoughtless of the other person. Not seeing each other’s pain and only feeling our own.

Is it possible?

Fuck . . . is it?

He said she’s been crying all weekend, that she’s messed up over this. Why would she be messed up if I mean nothing to her? If this was always nothing?

Closing my eyes again, I see her face, her broken, agony-stricken face, covered in tears I’m now focusing on for the first time. Really focusing on. Her pink lips trembling and her entire body shaking.

Shaking like mine.

She was shattered. Fuck, she was. I couldn’t see her suffering. Not while feeling my own. It blinded me, but now I see it. She was crushed. Devastated. Because of how I spoke, how I looked at her. My reaction ripping her apart, and my question . . .

My question destroying her.

“What do you think?” she asked me, begging me with her eyes to speak the truth for her. The only truth she wanted to say, but I didn’t. I gave her nothing because I couldn’t. I couldn’t see her.

I couldn’t see my Brooke.

“She loves you. Fix it.”

I gave her nothing, and she gave me everything. Me. No one else. She chose me.

She chose me.

A shuddering breath bursts from my mouth, blowing hot against my face.

My Brooke.

My Brooke . . . she chose me. She loves me.

Loves. Me.

And I’m the one who made her feel like she never mattered. I’m the one who treated her as if she meant nothing that day.

I’m the one who made her feel like a whore.

Pain sears in my jaw as I grit my teeth.

What have I done? What the fuck have I done?

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE?

I need to see her. Need to talk to her. Need to hold her.

Groaning, feeling a thousand needles stabbing my skull and acid churning in my gut, shredding the lining of my stomach and burning my intestines, I ball my fists and try and push off from the bed.

I get an inch. Maybe. Pain doubles me over. Scorching pain behind my eyes, in the center of my chest, blooming out to my limbs, my fingers. I feel it everywhere. I roll onto my side and hold my head. I taste bile in my throat.

I have been doing nothing but drinking the past two days. Drinking and missing Brooke. Drinking and wondering if she was always too wild for me. If maybe we were doomed from the start.

Was the sole purpose of meeting this woman to show me everything I ever wanted, and everything I would never have? Is the universe that fucking cruel?

I couldn’t answer that this weekend, or maybe I didn’t want to. Fear bonded to my tongue and imprisoned my mind.

I have no problem answering now.

Impossible.

Impossible, because I love her wild. It was always part of the attraction with Brooke. I love her rough edges and her sharp tongue. I love the woman who pulled me into that photo booth as much as I love the one who shyly came against my mouth. The sheep and the wolf. It has always been everything about this woman, her unbridled desire and the soft, sweet way she gentles for me. Her darkness and her light. I want them both.

I will always want them both.

We were never doomed. I didn’t move to Chicago to open my own studio. That’s not what brought me here. I moved to Chicago so I could find her.

That disc, it means nothing. He never had her. No one has ever had Brooke the way I have. No one ever came close.

I pinch my eyes shut and stay on my side, not moving. I breathe tensely through my nose. The pain decreases to a bearable throb.

A few minutes pass and I’m trying again, sitting up and then immediately collapsing back down when the room starts to spin mercilessly.

“Fuck!”

I roll onto my stomach and bury my face into the pillow. I feel my heart everywhere. In my skull, pounding, the echo radiating along my scalp and down my spine. In my chest where it aches, it doesn’t beat. It won’t beat there, not until she’s with me.

Not until I have her.

It’s probably for the best that I’m too sick to move. I know I look like shit. Probably worse than I feel. If I were able to get out of this bed, there wouldn’t be anything stopping me from going to Brooke right now, not waiting and getting myself together. A change of clothes at least.

No. I wouldn’t wait for clothes.

She deserves better than this version of me coming to her and begging for forgiveness. I need to sober up first. Shower. Fucking shave.

Christ, I’ll probably scare her looking like I do.

I need to do this right. I won’t be selfish right now. This is for her, not me.

Tonight. Tonight will be better. Or tomorrow after I get a decent night’s sleep and go long enough without a drink that I don’t reek of alcohol. I can see her in the morning, first thing. I can meet her at work, or at the coffee shop, or . . .

My gut tightens. Rosie’s.

Yes. Fuck, yes, tomorrow is Tuesday. Our breakfast, the one morning Brooke agreed to give me.

I still want it. Does she? Will she show up? Will she be hoping I’m there, even though I hurt her and she has every right to hate me?

Anxiety soaks into my bones. My heart rattles in my chest.

God, if she’s there . . .

Fuck it. I might ask her to marry me before I get my apology out. I won’t be able to stop myself.

No. Come on, mate, she deserves to know how sorry you are. Give her that first.

An extraordinary serenity warms my skin. I’m so close. So close to seeing her. If she shows up at Rosie’s or not, this unbearable agony ripping me apart from the inside out is nearly extinguished because either way, I’m getting my girl back tomorrow.

And I’m never letting her go.

Swiping my arm along the bed, I grab the furry leg of the bastard stuffed koala and pull him against my side, squeezing him.

Only one more night in the tent without her.

BROOKE

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I know what I should be doing. I should be sleeping, or at least trying to sleep. I could use more than what I’ve been getting, which is turning out to be only a few hours a night. Not nearly enough. I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally. It distracts me from the pain a little so I’m okay with being too tired to care about how I look, and nearly too tired to care about anything. But since I am awake, and showered, at least half-way put together, I should be walking in the opposite direction on Fayette street and heading into work, but I’m not.

I’m walking past the coffee shop, down the street a little further toward those yellow umbrellas.

Why? Why am I doing this? I need all of the practice I can get, every spare minute I have to work on those flowers, and instead I’m wasting my time going to Rosie’s because it’s Tuesday.

It’s Tuesday.

Mason wanted this day so badly, this breakfast. Me, early in the morning, and I know he isn’t here. I know it. I know it just like I know that at some point today I’m going to hear that door chime and hope that it’s him, and it won’t be. And then I’m going to cry, and throw something, and scream a little. I’m going to miss him and hate him and love him because I can’t turn that off yet, and I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to.