You Make Me (Blurred Lines #1)(57)
Author: Erin McCarthy

But instead, he let my palm connect with his cheek in a loud crack. Something was happening and I didn’t understand. I was scared. Hurt. It felt like we didn’t know how to communicate with each other and I didn’t know how to fix it. So I lashed out. It didn’t have a lot of force to it, and the slap grazed off the side of his face, my hand falling to the mattress, but it was enough to know that I’d done it to have me bursting into tears.

Lurching backwards, I half-fell off the bed. “I’m sorry. I just… I can’t…”

“What?” He sat up. “Give me some kind of clue because I don’t even know what the hell we’re talking about here.”

He made me crazy. I hit, I shoved, I slapped. What the hell was wrong with me? I had felt some of the most profound and powerful moments of happiness since he had come back to town, and yet… I’d also felt some of the worst desperate and cloying insecurity, jealousy, and frustration. I didn’t understand how I could love him so deeply and yet be such a neurotic disaster.

“What did you think I did?” I asked him. “Before you left Vinalhaven, what did you think I did?” I had never wanted to press, never wanted to hear the truth. But I had to know. I had to know everything.

Heath stared up at me, his nostrils flaring a little. “I didn’t leave just because Brian called social services, though that was part of it. I left because you filed a restraining order against me.”

“What?” I reeled backwards, unable to even understand what he was saying. “What are you talking about?”

“I had to stay a certain distance from you and the house. It said that you felt threatened and in danger from me. It was filed by you and your dad.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I would never, ever have done that.”

“I know. I saw it in your eyes when I got here and we talked. You didn’t know. So I guess it was your dad who wanted me gone, right along with Brian.” He shook his head and I could hear the hurt in his voice. “He could have just asked me to leave. Been honest with me, instead of tossing me out on my ass with a court order.”

Why would my father have done that? Why hadn’t he just talked to me? Oh, God, I didn’t know what to think about anything…

All I knew is that no one had trusted me to have a brain in my head and as a result I’d spent four years suffering.

“But you believed that I would do that to you. You didn’t trust me at all.”

“I was hurt, Cat.” He sat up, reaching for me. “I didn’t know what to think. Your name was right there, on the papers. It was devastating. But I was too hurt and too young to think about the fact that you were a minor and your father could have filed that on your behalf, without you knowing.”

Even so. He had just believed me capable of such cruelty, such duplicity. He had accused me of not trusting him, but he hadn’t trusted me either.

He had just walked away.

“I need to go,” I blurted. Now I needed to get away. I needed to feel fresh air on my face, to cool my hot cheeks, my hot mouth.

“It’s three in the morning. You’re not leaving this apartment.” He stood up. “I can leave if you don’t want to be with me.”

“No!” That made me feel a panic and hysteria that was so overwhelming, I thought I was going to throw up. “Don’t! I don’t want you to.”

“Cat.” He reached for me, carefully, like I might scratch his eyes out like my namesake. “What’s going on? Talk to me!”

“I’m leaving.” I scrambled onto my knees, grabbing blindly for my shoes. I definitely thought I was going to be sick. I was sobbing and I didn’t even totally understand why.

“Because I didn’t tell you about the house? Or is this about your dad? I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to damage your opinion of him.”

“I’m leaving,” I repeated, and suddenly we both seemed to know what I really meant. I was leaving.

I wasn’t coming back.

Heath exploded. “You’re breaking up with me?” He reached for me again, and when I dodged him, he threw his hands up and kicked the bed. “Fuck. Fuck. You’ve got to be kidding me. Cat, please, don’t do this. This is insane.”

What was insane was how I was acting, how I had been acting. “Something is wrong, very, very wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. I just need to run.” It was like there wasn’t enough space in the apartment, in Orono. The building, the trees, the university, all were pressing in on me. I just wanted to run to the rocks like I had when I was a girl, and later with Heath. When everything was simple.

I had to run before he figured out what my father clearly had- that I wasn’t worthy. Before Heath abandoned me again. Left me. The way Brian had. My father had. Ethan had.

Before he figured out that I wasn’t worth waiting four years for.

I crawled across the floor, shoving my shoes on.

“You’re going to run? What, back to Ethan? Well, news flash, I fixed him up with a cute little brunette who is probably right now letting him knock on her back door. And you know what they say about that.”

No, I didn’t. And I wasn’t about to ask what he meant. Horrified, I stared up at him, vision blurring from tears. “You are so vicious. You’re just vicious. I hate you. Right now, I honestly hate you.”

“I’m not real happy with you right now either.” He gave me an unapologetic glare. “But don’t walk out that door. Seriously, do not.”

I was going to crawl out if I had to. I wasn’t going to be like Kerri and stay there, timid, in a situation that wasn’t good for me. If this is what being with Heath did to me, then I needed to get out now.

Run.

Shoes on, I took off for the door, grabbing my phone and my keys from their perch on the kitchen counter.

“Cat! Wait. Don’t you dare walk out on me.”

But I was already out the door and down the stairs, taking them so fast, I stumbled and skipped the last two by accident, careening forward. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. I was on the sidewalk when he caught up with me. He had longer, stronger legs.

There was fresh snow on the ground that I skidded in, my shoes the wrong choice for the soft wetness. I hadn’t put a coat on.

“Are you really leaving me?” he asked, his breath puffing out in front of him, his eyes stormy. “Is this what you really want to do?”