Cate

For quite some time, Zac and I laid in each other's arms without uttering a word. His bare, tatted skin felt so warm and alive against mine, but my heart felt cold. A chaotic kaleidoscope of distress and uncertainty spun within me. I tried to relax into the moment and soak up every precious minute of my last few hours in New York with my beautiful brown-eyed boy.

I held my man close—clung to him, in fact—as though I might lose him if I didn't hold on tight enough. The curves on my body seemed to fit perfectly into his hard, solid frame. Our bodies had been made for each other. Yet, sex was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

For a second, I closed my eyes to escape reality. I let my imagination drift and wander. In my mind's eye, Zac and I became an illusion of two young people in love, lost in a cloud of sweet, shining bliss, in this beautiful, picturesque hotel room of mine. Our nakedness was tangled up in bed sheets. The smell of sex and sweat filled the air. More than anything, I wanted to linger in this fabricated version of us. This past week in New York had been a dream, a gift, a drug. Even now, I loved Zac so much that I was almost willing to hide away all the sad, painful secrets that threatened to destroy him, the same secrets that threatened to send him to a sinister, solitary place that I might not be able to follow.

And yet—if my foolish seventeen-year-old heart had learned anything at all in this past year, it was that people couldn't run forever. Not from their demons. Mamma's demons had stolen her away. Zac's demons almost took him down. I was still fighting my own demons. Yet, we all needed to face our fears at some point, and love, real love, had the strength to shine even in darkness. So fiercely, I wanted to believe in that strength. I hoped my optimism wouldn't come back to haunt me later. My eyes reopened.

I made a choice. It wasn't like I had the luxury to wait much longer, anyway. Zac's memories were coming back whether or not we were ready for them. In this sense, I was already living on borrowed time. Instinct told me that Zac knew more than he let on. During our strained conversation mere moments ago, I couldn't help feeling as though my boyfriend was testing me. He had simply chosen not to press me harder for answers. An uncomfortable thought gnawed at me. I needed to reintroduce Zac to his demons before the past caught up to us.

Gently, I placed a hand on his chest. Right over the pulse of his beating heart. The steady rhythm of it calmed me. It gave me a little more courage to do what I was about to do.

My eyes flicked up to his face. "Hey, baby?"

He grunted back in distracted tones. "Yes?"

I began haltingly, "That day, in the townhouse..."

Zac's brown eyes swiveled towards me. He no longer looked distracted. His full attention was now locked onto me.

I continued, "There might've been some other shit that went down."

"After we had sex?"

"Yes."

His mouth flattened into a grim line. Zac didn't appear to be shocked at all by my admission. This worried me even more. "So... you were lying to me? Just now?"

I hated the hard, piercing way he was looking at me. There was no softness in his gaze. Only doubt and distrust.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't want to keep anything from you, but..."

His expression darkened. "But what?"

"This whole fucked up situation is bigger than you or me, Zac. To be honest, I'm not even supposed to spill anything until the trial is over, but I'll tell you as much as I can. If you feel like you're ready to hear it."

"Are you talking about the Harvey Waldron trial?"

"Yeah."

An unreadable look passed across Zac's handsome face. It made me real fucking nervous. In chillingly calm tones, he muttered, "I don't understand what the fuck Harvey Waldron has to do with me, Cate, but everyone's been handling me with kid gloves these past few months. I'm so sick of it. I thought you'd be different. I thought I could trust you to be straight with me. But you've been playing me for months, like, I don't even know what to think of you anymore. It's killing me. Everything you've ever said to me was probably a lie."

"I never meant to put you in this position, baby," I insisted, "and I'm trying to make up for it. I'm willing to tell you everything that I can!"

He scoffed in mocking tones, "You're willing to tell me everything that you can? So... you're still gonna keep shit from me? Even after everything I said about how you're breaking my trust?"

"Like I said, the trial—"

"Fuck the trial!"

I tried to reason with him, "I'm not the enemy here."

Contempt burned in his eyes. "Of course you're not! You probably think of yourself as some kind of martyr for suffering in silence."

His words stung like hell. My voice trembled when I begged him, "Please stop, Zac, and listen to me."

He ignored my plea. "Were you afraid of breaking me or something? Is that why you kept your mouth shut?"

I didn't want to lie anymore, so I replied honestly, "A little, yeah."

"You must think I'm crazy, then. Weak. Stupid."

"No, baby, I love you! I'd ever think those things about you! You're legit one of the strongest people I've ever met! I just wanna be here for you."

I tried to pull him closer into my arms, but he resisted me. I let him go. He rolled away to the other side of the bed until we were no longer touching. Zac's eyes squeezed shut as though in pain. "I don't know if I can do this, Cate."

My heart dropped. "What?"

"I don't wanna hear what you have to say. Not anymore."

Pathetically, lamely, I attempted to salvage this wreckage, "Okay, that's fine. Totally fine. We can talk tomorrow. Or whenever you're ready."

He shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant."

Panic gripped me. I struggled to stay calm, but, deep down, I was drowning in the fear of losing him.

I forced myself to say, "Tell me what you meant, then."

Zac refused to meet my gaze when he replied, "I think... I wanna figure shit out on my own for a bit. I'm starting to realize that, at this point, the only person I can trust is myself."

"You can trust me, baby."

"No, I can't."

"Zac, please don't do this..."

"I need some time away from you. I can't think clearly when you're around."

My soul exited my body. The world suddenly felt unreal. Everything became surreal. "Are you saying... that you wanna break up with me?"

He gave me a pause. A long, heart-stopping pause. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to say."