Pieces of a Life: Colten & Josie: Part One (The Life Series Book 3) by Jewel E. Ann

Author:Jewel E. Ann [Ann, Jewel E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-12T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“You ended us. We are over,” I reply to Colten’s regurgitation of the words I fed him so many years ago. “There is no we. There is you, and there is me. Even if you’ve managed to run off my date tonight, it doesn’t change anything.”

He studies me in silence for several seconds. “Do you remember Tessa? The day she came to my house, and you were there?”

I remember everything. Every word. Every breath. Even the tiny spaces between breaths. He doesn’t need to know that, so I give him nothing but several bored blinks and a straight face.

Easing his head side to side, he grins. “I was fucking drowning. Trying to figure out who I was, where my life was meant to go, why my dad was such an asshole, and how to be what my mom needed me to be. Then there was you, Josephine Watts. When I was with you, nothing else mattered. Until Reagan came into my life, I couldn’t imagine ever meeting someone who made me feel so …” His face contorts into a slightly painful expression while he averts his gaze to the floor for a second. “I … I can’t even find the right word. It’s not ‘important’ or ‘purposeful.’ It’s like I just knew I was meant to be your friend, the way I just knew when I held Reagan that I was meant to be her father. Not that you needed me or that she needed me. Just that I knew I was part of something …”

His gaze meets mine, and I hate him for not being awful. I’ll forever hate him for so many reasons. “Something life-changing,” he whispers. “And I felt so damn lucky. Always have. Always will.”

Colten has never played by the rules, not that I ever have either, but I have a healthy respect for them. I’m more judicious when it comes to breaking them. He dives in before checking to see if the pool is two feet or ten feet deep.

“You ran away. That was life changing. Being with me?” I shake my head. “That was nothing special to you.”

“Yes—”

“No!” I cut him off. “You took a nine-year friendship …” I steady my words, needing them to be as clear as they’ve been in my head for so many years. “It was more than friendship. You ended it with ten fucking words. And then you went to the one place you knew I wouldn’t follow you. And you never made an effort to speak to me again.” As my words rip from my chest, they lose all confidence. Seventeen years has done very little to mend the broken pieces of my heart.

“I don’t watch baseball. I don’t own a bike. I can’t stand listening to the piano, let alone Beethoven. I haven’t had milk and chocolate chip cookies in seventeen years. You took everything that was wonderful in my life and made it ugly and painful.”

He winces. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nope. You don’t get to be sorry.

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