Nate's eyes narrow. "Maybe you should leave."

"No."

"I've nothing else to say."

"I am not spending the rest of my life wondering what the h.e.l.l happened to kill what was growing into something different between us. And I refuse to return to b.i.t.c.hing and immaturity." I catch his look. "From either of us."

"I told you, nothing to say, Riley."

I catch him in a staring match, and wait until he's fully engaged. "Boy or girl?"

"What?"

"Do you have a secret kid somewhere; one the mother won't let you see?"

"No, I f.u.c.king don't!" Nate shouts the words at a volume I haven't heard for a long time. I shrink back as he steps forward. "Just f.u.c.king go, Riley!"

Anger, but his body language yells louder. He wraps his arms around himself, and his hands tremble. This staring match isn't what he wants because the minute the pain slips out from behind his eyes he pivots around to the kitchen and walks in, slamming the door.

Stunned, I wait and listen. No sound. Do I leave?

I can't. Whatever box of secrets I've broken open here, Nate won't deal with them. He'll be angrier and nastier in the future because I have.

I risk a venomous diatribe from him, but I no longer want to fight back. I want to help Nate lift whatever weight pushes down at him.

"Nate." No response. I expect the door to slam closed again when I open it; but he stands in the centre of the room, arms still wrapped around himself.

"Why do you do this?" he snaps. "Why do you push? Over and over, further and further. I can't let you anymore!"

"Look, I only came to apologise and call a truce. I accept and understand why Josh is a no go for you. That's all I wanted to say and to hear you agree to draw a line under us."

"No, you don't understand."

"Then explain to me," I say gently.

"I saw Josh, and it was more than a shock. It hurt. Everything hurt again."

My resolve breaks at his strange words. "Nate, you've told me a lot in our time together. You can talk to me about what you need. What happened?"

He slumps against the bench and my heartbeat quickens with each moment following. "s.h.i.t, Riley. I'm confused."

"Talk to me."

For a long moment, Nate studies the ceiling and my discomfort grows. Has he forgotten I'm here? Or ignoring me until I leave? I shift and my shoes squeak on the tiled floor.

He blinks and looks back to me. "I told you I was engaged once, yeah?"

"Yes, and that it didn't work out."

He looks me directly in the face. "I'm gonna tell you something and I don't want you to say a word to anybody. Can I trust you with that? Or will you use it against me?"

"No, Nate. I said I care about you. I want to help you; and if that means you saying whatever is happening in your head because it'll help, I'll listen."

Again a huge silence but this time he searches my face. I don't know what he sees, but I hope it's what I intended to hide when I came here today: how much I care for him.

He chews his lips, as if biting back the words. "Charlotte and me. We'd been together two years. Got engaged because she fell pregnant. I loved her so f.u.c.king much, couldn't imagine life without her. Didn't want to lose her. When she told me she was pregnant, I freaked out. Then I saw it as a sign we should stay together; I even considered leaving the band to stay with her in Oxford."

"Wow." When he told me about his engagement, it was a shock but this isn't comprehensible. "You do have a kid somewhere, then? Where? What happened, Nate?"

His shoulders slump and the rest of his story spills. "We planned to get married without telling anybody because we were eighteen and could do what the f.u.c.k we wanted. I was caught up in the idea that we had each other and that was enough. I had Charlotte and she was my whole world, her and the baby my responsibility. I would've done anything for her. Them." Nate stares at the floor.

"You don't need to tell me this, Nate," I say softly.

"I need you to understand. I don't want you to think I'm making excuses and this is because I'm too immature to accept you have a kid."

"What happened?"

Nate takes a deep breath and looks behind me at the door. "Out of the blue a month later, Charlotte ended the pregnancy and the relationship. Walked away. Shut me out, wouldn't speak to me." I scramble to catch up to his words, stepping forward as his voice turns hoa.r.s.e, but his arms wrap tighter around himself. "Then I found out why." I can't find words and what follows cuts more away from my anger with him. "She wasn't sure the baby was mine."

"Oh." The word rushes out with my breath. "Nate..."

"Can you even understand what that did to me? I loved her, but f.u.c.k..." Nate drags both hands through his hair and grips, staring at the floor again. "She didn't ask me or involve me. About the baby. I know it was her decision to make, but she didn't involve me... And someone she... there was someone else. I meant nothing. We meant nothing."

"Nate..." His confession and pain hits the weakest point in my defence, the sole place I had left I never thought he could touch. "You carried this all these years?"

"Easier if I pretend it didn't happen and avoid it happening again. I was an idiot. Left myself open, allowed somebody to takeover my heart and mind, and was thrown to one side. I can't do that again. I can't go through this s.h.i.t when somebody f.u.c.ks me over again."

His anguish radiates across the kitchen, the words pouring from his mouth leaving him exposed and raw again. In front of me is the teenage Nate, confused and unable to see anything but the black and white of the situation.

I finally understand. This man never moved on; stuck with his pain from the past dictating his life. A lot of guys in eighteen-year-old Nate's situation, like Logan, would run. A guy on the edge of success would do anything to dodge the curveball thrown in his path.

Nate chose to let it hit him full on. And so did I.

He interrupts my thoughts with another outburst. "You know what? She f.u.c.king married him. The other guy." He drags in a breath. "And they have a f.u.c.king kid!"

I've tapped the spring before, know Nate's pa.s.sion, and experienced how deep the emotions run as they spilled out in the heated times we've loved and hated, but I've never seen this horrible mix of anger and hurt in his eyes. This man is unpredictable and I don't know which way our conversation will go.

"She married him back then? Instead of you? Are you sure she didn't lie and the child is yours?"

"No. Not then. I don't know when they married. And the kid isn't old enough to be mine." His mouth thins. "My kid would've been Josh's age."

The clouds of confusion lift, revealing the truth why Nate dropped everything between us and switched off. Me. A child. Lies. Vulnerability. But no matter how much he hurts, applying all this to what we have is wrong.

"Is this because of Josh's father too?" I say quietly. "Do you think I rejected him?"

Nate frowns as if the thought hadn't occurred. "I don't know. Maybe. Because n.o.body knew you had Josh, I thought maybe you pretended to him too. Like, never told him."

"No, Nate. Josh's dad was the opposite of you. I know who he is and he couldn't get away from me fast enough when I told him I was pregnant. Josh doesn't have a dad because his dad refuses to accept he exists."

Nate's frown deepens and the scowl normally reserved for me appears. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He never helped?"

"No. But I've been okay."

Nate nods and taps the kitchen counter next to him, the room filling with uneasy silence.

"I don't know what to say," I whisper. "I never knew..."

I refuse to allow his barriers to reconstruct against me. I know him and he shared himself with me. Nate allows me to wrap my arms around him, and I attempt to touch his face, but he turns away. Where I'm pressed against him, Nate's heart races and his breathing shallows, but he keeps his arms by his sides.

"Does Will know? Have you spoken to people about this?"

"No. He just opened his big mouth and told me about her. He thought it would help me and you." His voice hardens and muscles tense again. "I deal with it my own way."

"By not allowing yourself close to people? You can't do that forever."

"Maybe not, but it works for now. I really can't deal with a relationship with somebody who has a daily reminder of what f.u.c.ked with my head and who lied to me."

I grip onto control with my fingernails. "Don't worry. I really didn't expect you to want me. I doubt we'd work out even without Josh in my life."

"No. I kinda wish things were different. I hope you understand why I can't do this. If it wasn't for your kid, I might've given this a go. I couldn't look at him and not be reminded, Riley. He'd be the same age and that partly drags up all the s.h.i.t that happened."

I squeeze my eyes in case tears find their way onto his shirt. Nate continues not to touch me. I ache for him to, and tell me it's okay and we can work through this, but his next words kick me in the gut.

"Can you leave, Riley? I need to be on my own."

On his own, where in his head he'll be curled up in a corner refusing to let go. The past defines us, but we decide whether to allow this to shape our future too. We always carry a part of our past with us, guiding us to a future. But we have choices. We can let go of the hurt, the betrayal, and the helplessness. Take control. Or we can hold on until the hurt spreads and poisons the person we want to be.

I stand back and touch Nate's cheek. He jerks his head up and the lost eyes meet mine. My heart splinters, not only at his rejection, but also at how stuck Nate is.

"Don't close yourself off from others forever. I've chosen not to. You helped by making me confront the pain in my past and accept it; you need to do the same."

"I'll just shut it out again," he says quietly. "And don't say anything, to anybody." I sigh and he grabs my hand, the grip causing me to wince. "Promise me."

"Okay, Nate."

"Thank you."

When his grip loosens, I tighten mine so he can't let go. "One day, you'll meet somebody and the risk will be worth it, Nate. The past won't matter, only your future."

Something in the centre of my soul screams out to Nate this should be me, us. That we belong. But what was this apart from a three-week ceasefire?

"If I can't take the risk with you, I doubt I ever can with someone else."

His words would be exactly what I wanted to hear, if they'd been said with affection, and not flat disappointment.

But what can I do? Nate's unhelpful rationality comes from emotions he can't control; and my feelings surrounding him do the same.

"I care about you," I say in a soft voice. "I don't want to think of you hurting."

"You can't fix this, but thanks for caring. I'm okay."

The strain remains on his face. "Are you? Will you talk to somebody? Get this out of your system?"

He moves towards the kitchen door and through the lounge to the hallway. I follow. "I never get things out of my system, Riley. Haven't you noticed? That's why I don't let anything in."

"You let me in."

His eyes darken. "Exactly. You'll never be out, but I can't have you in my life. I'm sorry."

Nate's regained his composure, but he avoids my eyes. My vain hope his secrets would bind us tighter drops. This was his explanation, his goodbye. I refuse to allow Nate to open the door and ask me to leave again, so pull open the door myself.

We don't say goodbye; I can't.

I sit in my car and stare at Nate's house, at where he closed the door on me; and everything I've contained since I walked into Nate's house spills. I wrap my arms around my head and rest my face on the steering wheel, the hurt dragging pain through my body until I shake. I have never wanted anybody more than I want Nate and it's crazy.

We caught ourselves in an endless cycle tearing at us both because we couldn't love or trust ourselves; and until that happened, we couldn't love or trust each other.

I once prayed the cycle would stop, but not like this.

34.

RILEY.

My decision to meet with Nate was supposed to straighten things out so I could return to concentrating on work, but instead the situation has screwed with my head further. Every time I draw a line in the sand with Nate, the to and fro of the tide between us washes it away until we're forced to draw a new one. Again and again.

His story broke my heart; but if I hadn't been a mother, how far into our relationship would Nate have allowed himself before the feelings buried from this betrayal resurfaced and applied to me anyway?

Nate's story blindsided me. I suspected a girl had broken his heart in the past and that he closed himself off to avoid this again; that wasn't hard to figure out. But this extreme situation he found himself in paints an entirely new picture of the self-centred jerk who doesn't know how to love.

His story also pulls me back in time to when I had the same decision to make, but I didn't have a guy like Nate. What would I have done? Married Logan and settled down? My experience was the opposite. Once Logan accepted the baby was his, he wanted me to end the pregnancy, scared he'd be held to me forever. He told me he wasn't ready for parenthood. At eighteen, his fear and opinions were valid; I wasn't either.

I was scared, but having Josh felt right to me.

Now the man who hated a girl for doing the opposite to another can't love me for my choices. Back then I refused to have a guy in my life who wouldn't accept my child. I'm not starting now.

Nate thinks I'm a hypocrite; a bad person for the decisions I made in the first years of Josh's life; but whatever mistakes I made, I will live with and change what I need.

I won't be strangled by the past.

I will also refuse to return to my old ways, finding attention through s.e.x, seeking my self-worth from a man desiring me. That's over with. One thing Nate taught me is that when my heart is involved, s.e.x becomes more than chasing a physical high. In time, I'll find somebody who treats me how I deserve because now I know I'm worth loving.