Page 108 of Let’s Be Real

It was starting to be like before. That old familiar feeling, where everything was getting to be too hard to have the motivation to keep trying. Had the world doubled its gravity without giving me any notice? That was what it felt like.

I had to wonder if this was what my life would always be like. Cycles of decent, maybe even good, sometimes so great I wasn’t sure it was real, followed by this.

How many more cycles could I take? How many times could a person survive becoming themselves all over again?

Wouldn’t it be easier—

No.

No, no, no.

My pulse kicked.

Don’t.

Not that road.

I shoved those thoughts away so hard it made me dizzy.

If I had those thoughts, that meant this wasn’t just a bad night, or a series of bad nights. It meant I had to tell Roman, and that would lead to everyone tiptoeing around me, watching me, holding their breath. I couldn’t do that to them again.

They’d wish they never met me, just like Rosalie.

I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get up from the floor. It was simple. It shouldn’t have felt like negotiating with a mountain.

I stared at the door, knowing Samantha was lying peacefully just on the other side. Getting back to her, pulling her into my arms, holding her even if I couldn’t sleep, should have been motivation enough.

It was. I wanted that more than anything.

I just had to convince my body it was worth trying.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Samantha

If I hadn’t stopped at the grocery store for tortilla chips, I would have missed it. But things with Nate had been off lately, and I was on a mission to fix it, deciding nachos were the thing.

Everyone liked nachos.

They’d brought Nate and me together. Surely, they’d reel him back in.

Or maybe I was assigning magical properties to melted cheese because I was running out of ideas.

Yesterday, I’d tried having a quiet evening with him. Over the weekend, I’d invited him to spin class—something Adrian and I never did because we held that time sacred between us. I’d bent for Nate. Last week, I’d greeted him at his door with a drink and blow job every evening before I left for work.

In the past, sex had always worked. After last night, I wasn’t so sure that was the answer here.

He was drifting. Even if he still told me he loved me often and rarely let me out of his sight, he wasn’t leaving me.

His body was beside mine. His eyes found me whenever I entered a room. But part of him was somewhere I couldn’t follow, staring at something over my shoulder I couldn’t see.

If he were any other man, I would have ended it. But he was my Nate, and I needed to make things right. There were only so many times I could fold myself until there was nothing left to change. And if I turned into the smallest version of myself…

What if it still wasn’t enough?

So nachos…even if I was grasping at straws.

I rushed through the aisles, my basket hooked over my arm, filled with tortilla chips and cheese, when a couple came around the corner pushing a cart. I barely looked at them, but a familiar laugh snagged my attention.