“Jesse—” she choked out.

“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “No one should be expected to put up with a person with the kind of past I have. No one should have to.” I knew what I had to say, but it didn’t want to come out. I had to take a few breaths and remind myself of all the reasons I needed to say it. “You have to save yourself, Rowen. I’m past the point of saving now.”

One month had changed everything, one month had upended my world. A year ago, I’d been a person who’d moved on from my horrendous past to claim a hopeful future. A year later, I was a person about to be swallowed up by my past with no foreseeable future. I’d been a fool to expect I could put it all behind me. I’d been an even bigger one to believe I had.

After another tear fell from her eyes, Rowen glared at me. “You know, I recognize a pushing away act from a hundred feet, Jesse. You should know that since you were the one who called me out on it.” She marched toward me. She didn’t stop until her chest bumped into mine. “Now it looks like I’m the one calling you out on the same thing. So I’ll repeat your words back to you . . . Don’t push me away, Jesse Walker. I’m not going anywhere.”

A woman like her was every man’s dream. A woman who couldn’t be shaken and would stand shoulder to shoulder in the face of a storm. I’d found that kind of woman and, beyond all belief, she loved me. And I had to let her go.

I had to let her go because I loved her.

That was what I reminded myself of when I cleared my face and met her eyes. “I’m not pushing you away, Rowen. I just want you to leave.”

There was the turning point. There was her resolve crumbling in front of me. She was about to fall apart. I didn’t think there was room for it, but I managed to hate myself a little bit more in that moment.

“You’re just saying that. You’re trying to hurt me and push me away because this is your twisted idea of protecting me.” Taking a deep breath, she looked up at me and her hardened expression fell. “I’m not leaving you until you can look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

It someone asked me if I’d rather have my fingernails ripped out or look Rowen in the eye and tell her that, I would have slapped both hands down on a table and said, “Do your worst” without a second’s thought. I would rather relive a week of my childhood before the Walkers than have to do that. But I couldn’t falter. I couldn’t fail so close to the end. I couldn’t drag her through whatever I was going through. I had to save Rowen since she obviously wasn’t going to save herself. Locking my eyes with hers, I set my jaw and got after it. “I don’t want you anymore, Rowen Sterling. But I do want you to leave.”

Rowen breaking in front of me was exactly what I’d vowed to never let happen. Watching her break before walking away from me for the last time secured the number one spot as the most horrific sight I’d ever seen.

THOSE PEOPLE WHO claim it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? Yeah, they’re full of shit.

The last few weeks, I’d felt like my heart was being sliced and diced every morning when I woke up and realized that Jesse was gone. There was nothing good left in the world. Life was more a chore than a celebration. The ache in my bones, the pit in my stomach, the memory of him that made me wish I didn’t have a brain . . . all of it made me doubt the whole loved-lost debate.

Alex and Sid decided to force a night on the town on me, making me certain I’d rather have never loved than lost. Every chump who eyed me like I was a notch to be carved on his bedpost. Every loser who thought a Hey and a lame smile was the height of romance. Every man who looked at me like I was something he wanted reminded me of him. The good looks and the bad looks. All of them reminded me of Jesse in some way.

It wasn’t just that night, though. Just about everything everyday found a way to remind me of Jesse. The one man who’d been brave enough to love me. The same one who’d looked me in the eye and said good-bye.

That night, the one I’d never forget a single word of, had ripped me to shreds. Not only because Jesse had broken us apart, but because of all he’d shared. I’d known he’d gone through hell before being adopted, but I never had it spelled out for me. Those things he shared with me had seemed unimaginable . . . unthinkable. How could the grinning, happy man I’d fallen in love with been exposed to those types of things and come out of it still able to smile, let alone love? He was a true testament to what the Walkers had done to help him, as well as what Jesse had done to help himself.

People who’d gone through those kinds of things didn’t turn into Jesse Walkers. Statistically speaking, people who’d gone through what Jesse had generally went on to spread the same kind of horrors. Jails were overpopulated with people like that. Mental institutions too. A small gravestone that was never visited, etched with the dates of someone who’d lived a short life, was another likely outcome for so many people who’d been abused.

So why had Jesse turned out so differently? Why had Jesse been the one to break free of his past? Or why had he?

Although I was nowhere as convinced as he was that he was doomed because his past had seeped into his present, the suddenness of it all was staggering. What had been the trigger for it? I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t need to have one. All I’d needed to do was help him through it. All I’d wanted to do was repay him the favor he’d paid me last summer. I wanted to pull the curtains back for him like he had for me so he could see the person he was in my eyes. Seeing the person I was in Jesse’s eyes had done more healing than a lifetime’s worth of therapy ever would have.

But that didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter how badly I wanted to walk alongside him in his battle, and it didn’t matter how much I wanted to spend my life with him, scars and all. He was gone. He hadn’t pushed me away. He hadn’t shoved me either. He’d forced me away.

There was nothing I could do. He didn’t want me. Even at his worst, his rock bottom, Jesse Walker didn’t want me. That insecure, guarded girl I’d arrived at Willow Springs as was just begging to be released. I’d managed to keep the lid on her so far. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to keep it up.

“So still no sign of Mar, right?” Alex asked, nudging me. The three of us were crammed into her El Camino, and even though I gave it a lot of crap for looking like it needed to go spend its golden years in a junkyard, it had gotten me to Willow Springs and back. After hanging up with Rose, I’d managed to stop Alex right as she was leaving for school. After I’d explained the situation, she let me take her car and she took my bike. Having good friends was a good thing.

“No sign, and that’s okay because a part of me doesn’t want to go to prison. It’s not okay because I know landing a few punches on her would help with some of this crazy rage I have inside of me.”

Sid, bless the dude, did the guy thing and gazed out the passenger window like he couldn’t hear a word. I wasn’t sure if Alex had told him what I’d told her, but I’d only given her the surface story. I’d told her that Mar was Jesse’s birth mother, that she and his birth father had abused him, and that was why he had to be removed from their “care.” She hadn’t probed for details and that had been a relief because the details weren’t mine to share. The details were enough to give a person nightmares for life, like they had me for the past few weeks.

“You realize she’s probably sick. Really, really screwed up in the head. Right, Rowen? What she needs is a psych ward, not a smack down.” Alex whipped the El Camino into the parking lot of the club they were forcing me to visit.