WITHOUT YOU IN IT
Performed by Kelsey Hart
TEN YEARS AGO
HIM: I’m going to strangle Carter.
HER: You can’t strangle him for telling the truth. I just need to be done with boys until the braces are gone and the surgery is behind me. It’s fine.
HIM: That’s bullshit.
HER: Why? It’s not like it’s going to be the end of the world if I don’t date in high school. And maybe you’re right, Beckett. Maybe all relationships are doomed. Maybe people are always destined to hurt the ones they say they love.
HIM: It’s okay for me to think like that, but not you. I won’t let my Maisey-girl’s dreams be ripped away. You WILL have your forever after.
PRESENT DAY
I wasn’t supposed to use thelights on the captain’s truck for personal reasons. But screw that. I had the lights and siren blaring as I sped from the firehouse toward home.
Something had happened.
She’d been attacked.
My stomach lurched, and rage filled me.
I should have fucking called off. I shouldn’t have left her alone.
The call from Fallon had terrified me. I hadn’t even been able to fully listen to what she was saying after she’d told me Maisey had been assaulted in my yard. I’d hung up, grabbed the keys, and headed out, with my crew demanding to know what had happened.
I’d been such an idiot for so long. Holding her at arm’s length. Blaming my heart and my childhood wounds. Even now, even realizing I wanted her,wanted something more, something permanent, I’d held back, telling myself I needed time to figure my shit out.
But really, it had been the last dregs of fear that had stopped me from taking what was mine.
Fear of ending up like my dad, fear of getting burned, figuratively or literally. Fear of wanting everything and ending up with nothing.
But Maisey, my sweet, gorgeous, kindhearted friend, would never set my house on fire with me in it or take off for South America, abandoning our family.
Instead, she’d always considered me worthy of her time, her effort, her touch.
She was certainly worthy ofmytime and effort and adoration. She deserved for someone to put her up on a pedestal, fall to their knees and give her the pleasure and love she desired.
I’d promised myself I’d give us both a happily ever after, and now, it might be too late.
Fuck. Fuck that. It wasn’t too late.
Please,I begged to the universe, to any higher power that might truly be out there.Please, let Maisey be okay.I’ll do anything. Anything to get another chance to give her everything she’s ever dreamed.
When I screeched around the corner onto our street, it was to find the sheriff’s SUV and an ambulance parked in front of my house. Spotlights were set up in the driveway, and people were crawling all over my yard.
I slammed the brakes and barely waited for the wheels to stop before I flung myself out of the truck and ran toward the ambulance. Lewis stood at the back, staring inside, looking decidedly frail, my dog’s leash in his hand. Worry furrowed his brows, and fear slashed through me all over again.
My mind filled with a million horrible images. Bloody ones.
Ones I’d lived in vivid color.
As I rounded the ambulance door, my eyes immediately landed on Maisey, sitting on the edge of the box rather than on a gurney. Her eyelids were closed, her ponytail askew, and her chin bloodied. Seeing her upright and cognizant enough to be holding an ice pack to the back of her head unclenched my heart, until the deathly pallor of her face and the dirt on the front of her scrubs registered.
Goddamnit…she’d been on the ground…