She started for the shower.

I kept a hand, pulling her back.

Nate moved to block her. “But not now. I just want to reserve a time with you to talk.”

Suddenly, I didn’t want to talk.

The dread was rising, spreading. It was reactivating my nerves for tomorrow at the same time until I was a mess of bad feelings twisting like a tornado inside of me.

I felt the ground beneath me start to shake. It was going to fall out.

I knew it. I just knew it.

It’s been too good.

I bent down and swept Nova back up in my arms. I pushed that thought away. I’d literally just got rid of my negative thoughts, but I couldn’t stop the prick of ice in my stomach.

Too good for too long.

Nova started crying, grabbing for my hair, and pushing away from me at the same time.

Nothing good lasts for you.

I was thinking and trying to ignore myself at the same time.

“Since I have the show tomorrow, can we talk after?” I was trying to shut my brain off, and I glanced at Nate as I asked this.

A whole other chill went through me at his look.

Nate had gone completely still.

He told you he doesn’t love you, but he knows how you feel. It’s time. He’s going to end things.

I felt exposed.

It was a matter of time before you lost him, too.

I turned, Nova still fighting to get free. “I need to feed her.”

He nodded, not saying a word.

I left it like that, feeling…

The day started out so good. How could it turn so drastic, so quick?

Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe I was imagining all of it?

Yes. I was.

I must be.

Right?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t like that I didn’t know.

I couldn’t lose them, either of them.

That’s all I did know.

I couldn’t lose them...

48

Quincey

“He said he wanted to talk?”

I was filling Ricci in on one of my breaks. I had my Bluetooth in my ear, and she was on my phone.

Nate texted earlier, saying he needed to postpone the lunch visit. It’d been a suggestion, and I never confirmed, so I was calling Ricci because I didn’t know how I felt about it.

“Yeah.”

“What happened after that?”

“Nothing.” I was weaving through some other dancers in the hallway. “I was feeding Nova, and then Emily came, and the moment kinda passed.”

“Did something happen before that? I mean, babe, you called specifically to tell me that Nate wants to talk. Considering you are both shacked up together and sleeping together, that’s telling me there’s something significant to this ‘talk,’ and that’s why you’re calling me about it.”

I hesitated, but Ricci was right.

I was pushing out the door, stepping out into the street.

“I—I’ve been pulling away from him.”

“Pulling away? You told me that you had great sex, and then bam, this came up. You were pulling away before that?”

“Yeah,” I confessed.

I’d been so stupid.

Ricci sounded confused. “Why would you do that? Are you okay?”

I hesitated again, but this was why I called her. I needed to talk it through with someone.

“I’m in love with him.”

Ricci snorted. “Duh. Who wouldn’t be in your shoes? He’s a great guy, and you’re living with him. You’re both raising Nova. If that’s not the recipe for falling in love, then I’m clueless about how the world works. But, babe. What’s wrong with falling in love with him?”

“I’m worried that he’s tired of it.”

“Great sex.”

I sighed. “I know, but I pulled away from him.”

“Yeah. Not connecting the dots here. Wait. I’m not saying this to upset you, but how you’re thinking right now, could this be because of your dad?”

“What?” I reeled on that one.

“Yeah, like your father’s programmed you to think everyone’s going to leave you or something like that? I don’t know what your dad’s said to you, but I know he used to say things to you. You’d pull away from people. I saw it over and over again, and I always knew it wasn’t healthy. Is that what’s happening here? Do you think maybe you’re sabotaging yourself?”

“No—”

But.

But…

A memory pierced me, coming at me hard and fast.

“She doesn’t really love you.”

I stared up at my dad, and I just got off the phone with Mom. “What?”

“They don’t love you.” His eyes were so cold. “You can’t believe what she says. I know your mother. She only thinks about herself. She cares about you, but she doesn’t love you. Not really. Not deep down. At least, not like the rest of her kids.”

He said it so casually, as if he were helping me in the long run.

He looked at me as if he were doing me a favor, but there’d been no remorse. Nothing. He meant what he said.

Searing pain burrowed deep in me, because it wasn’t the first time he said it. Or the second.

It’d been the thirtieth by then.

I was six.

And it still hurt.