I know that Dennis is right, that Mackenzie would certainly have a lot to say about his threats and would most likely kick his ass herself and throw her entire career away for my benefit, because that’s the kind of person she is—just as I know that’s something I can’t allow. Dennis’s taunts about her career being so new are one hundred percent valid; there is a good chance she wouldn’t ever recover from something like this. All her years of school, all her hard work . . . just gone. All because of me.
I don’t know how much time passes before I’m able to sink down into my chair, my rage ebbing and giving way to bone-deep defeat that makes my body feel heavy. It’s unfair that I’ve just opened myself up to another person, especially a person as special as Mackenzie, only to be told I have to give her up. And what’s more—that I have to break her heart in the process.
It’s a bitter reminder of all the reasons why I worked so hard to keep people at arm’s length for the entirety of my life leading up to the last few weeks—having wanted to avoid complications like this. I think I had actually deluded myself into thinking that I could have it all, that things would work out for the better, and I could have someone see me, actually see me, and keep them. I’m realizing now that it was nothing more than a fantasy. That I reached too high and now I’m paying the consequences. Strangely, I don’t care about any of the dangers that are looming over my head, not concerned in the slightest about what might happen to me.
Because all of it pales in comparison to the woman I’m being asked to give up.
23
Mackenzie
“Does it look straight?”
I hold the curtain rod as still as I’m able, my arms starting to burn as I wait for Gran’s approval.
“Mm,” I hear behind me. “Maybe a little more to the left.”
I groan, moving an inch on the step stool. “I’m buying you a level for Christmas.”
“You’re doing a fine job,” she assures me.
I roll my eyes, knowing she can’t see me do it. “Here?”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” she informs me. “Do you need the screws?”
I shake my head, pulling the pencil from my ear and marking on the wall where the rod holders will go. I step down from the stool after, dropping the rod gently against the pile of Gran’s new curtains on the floor.
“You’re gonna have to give me a minute,” I tell her, rolling my shoulder. “You had me holding that curtain rod for half an hour practically.”
Gran clicks her tongue. “You’re still young. You’re fine.”
“Still,” I grumble.
“Well, get your gripey little butt in the kitchen, and I’ll make you some coffee.”
“That sounds more like it.”
I leave the project that she tricked me into taking over at the sliding glass door—following her into the kitchen and plopping down at one of the padded stools at her kitchen island. She busies herself with the coffeepot, warming what’s left from the morning, pulling down two mugs from her cabinet.
I take the spare moment to check my phone, frowning when I notice that Noah still hasn’t replied to my text from this morning. I know he has work today, and that it’s not a big deal that he would be too busy to respond—so why do I keep checking like some twitterpated teenager? His text from last night had been pretty sparse too; he’d said something about being tired from a long day and told me he was going to bed, and that’s completely normal, expected even—it’s just me who’s being weird.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been weird for days. Weeks, even. Since we left the lodge and started doing things that felt very much not pretend. Between the date and spending the weekend together and cuddling on couches and the constantly growing desire to see him, to talk to him . . . everything feels unclear. I can’t seem to decide if what we’re doing is something we should keep doing. Not because I don’t want to—on the contrary, because I want it too much. I’ve been happy to hide in the bubble that was a limited agreement that would end the moment Noah left the hospital, but now in the face of that, after everything . . . Well. I’m definitely experiencing several of those complications that Noah had been so worried about.
“You’re going to stare a hole in the screen if you keep up like that,” I hear Gran say from across the counter.
I turn up my head abruptly. “What?”
“What’s got you so absorbed in your phone?”