Intertwined

chapter twenty-eight

I TELL MYSELF that Rhett's sudden change of heart doesn't affect me. It's easier than accepting that I got my hopes up, and I jumped in headfirst. I was reckless with my heart. I should have watched where I was going, kept things locked tighter in, but he found the string that exposed my heart, and he pulled it until I was undone. Now I all I have is the memory of what was.

But at this point I fear it was all in my head. I saw what I wanted to see, and I let it sway how I thought he felt. It was fair of me to assume, but what his words hadn't said, his actions more than made up for. He had me on the tight rope, he held his hand out to give me safety and then he let me fall. If I was honest, I'd admit the truth.

This feels like a sucker punch straight to my heart.

"Emmy."

I lift my head in a daze and find Kayla standing in the doorway of my office, Poe at her side and I squeeze my eyes shut as I lean forward on my desk and bury my face in my hands. I had lied to Quinn when I said I had ordered an Uber, I haven't. I walked home to wallow in my feelings, to walk off the hurt and get back to what I do best, but the armor fell apart the second I was home, and everything hit me at full force. The memory of Rhett's lips on my skin, the feeling of his rough calloused fingers on my smooth skin, the look in his eyes when he caught my eyes in the mirror. I know what I saw, and I heard it in his voice when he called himself my boyfriend for the first time.

He loves me, and when that hit, I fell apart and completely forgot that I was supposed to go pick Poe up from Kayla's last night. And now I look every bit as weak as I feel.

She doesn't hesitate to step inside, letting go of Poe's leash as she shuts the door and pulls the blinds on my glass door shut. She moves toward the wall of windows looking into the pit and does the same before walking toward my desk. "It's okay," she says, and she doesn't even know what she's saying it's okay for as she wraps her arms around me. "I've got you."

"I'm sorry," I whisper as my fingers tangle in the fur on the top of Poe's head, her chin rested in my lap. "I... He ran, Kayla."

"I know," she whispers, pressing her cheek to the top of my head. "Quinn called me last night. He told me, well, he summed up what he picked out of the way you left the hospital so abruptly and how Rhett was acting. What happened?"

I shake my head. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Em, we both know that letting it fester isn't going to do you any good," she says, tightening her hold on my shoulders. "He's an idiot."

I want the words to help, but they don't. If anything they make the burning in my chest worse, because how in the hell did I end up here? How did I let him in this deep? I have spent every second of my life protecting myself from ever feeling like this, but Rhett felt so right. He felt so safe, and despite the warning signs going off in my head, telling me to protect myself, to be wary of his intentions, I let myself fall into the feeling. I let those feelings simmer beneath the surface, and now that they're out in the open, I can't pull them back in.

"He changed his mind about us," I say as I lean back in my seat. Kayla walks to the front of my desk, sinking into one of the chairs and my eyes drop to Poe, holding her face in my hands as a small smile creeps onto my feet at the gentle look in her eyes. "I told him I couldn't do the no strings attached anymore, he told me we hadn't been no strings for a while and then said he was my boyfriend," I explain. "And then he got hurt, and he changed his mind."

"He's scared."

I nod my head. "Or I got him all wrong," I say as my thumbs rub slow circles over Poe's head, distracting myself from the flurry of thoughts. "I got my hopes up."