I Am Yours (Heartbeat #3) by Faith Sullivan Page A

was lonely. I was drunk…and Kelly reminded me so much of you. There’s no denying I was weak.” I rest my head against the wall, wishing for the millionth time that that night in February never happened. “I couldn’t get over the fact of losing you and never getting the opportunity to kiss you or—”
    “Stop it!” She beats her hand against the door, causing it to shudder.
    “Katie, I’m being brutally honest with you because I think you deserve to hear the truth, no matter how ugly it is.” I place my hands up to the wall like I’m being handcuffed. She’s my judge and my jury now. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes since the day you died…or the day I thought you died. I don’t know. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
    I close my eyes and hear her sniffle. It’s killing me to not be able to hold her, comfort her. It’s like we’re on the edge of breaking up or something. I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not after I’ve only just found her again.
    “I didn’t deal with my pain like a man, that’s for sure. I acted like a spoiled brat who didn’t get his way. I took it out on everyone around me, using women to make myself feel better. Only it didn’t work.” My ribs are burning as I stretch my arms even higher on the wall. I want to them to hurt. I want to feel like I’m being punished. She deserves some type of retribution for my betrayal. “But I couldn’t escape your face. Everywhere I looked, you were there. I couldn’t get you out of my mind no matter how hard I tried. I was willing to do anything to escape your hold on me.”
    “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she mutters softly in defeat. “You’re not the Adam I’ve come to love. You’re someone else, someone I don’t even recognize.”
    My heart plummets. She can’t be serious. I need to convince her that I can change, that I can win her back. “Tell me about your Adam. What’s he like?” It rips me apart to utter those words, but I’ll do whatever it takes. If she wants me to become some fantasy of hers, I will. I’m tethered to this girl, body and soul. There’s no going back now. There’s no breaking this bond between us.
    She doesn’t speak right away, but when she does, her voice is strong, like she’s firm in her convictions, believing every word. “He’s a guy who’s willing to walk through fire for me. He’s always there when I need him. His love for me never wavers.”
    Man, how can I compete with that? It’s downright impossible. No guy can live up to such high standards, especially someone as flawed as I am. I take a tremulous breath, trying to settle my nerves. This isn’t going to be easy.
    “I’m no saint, Katie. And I hope you don’t expect me to be, or else I’m afraid I’m going to continue to disappoint you.” Her body thumps against the door and I’m pretty sure she has turned her back on me. Gathering my determination, I keep going. “But I do know what it means to be faithful to one girl. I’ll admit it’s been a while, but before your death, I was only with one other person.”
    To try to understand her better, I think back on the feelings I had when April cheated on me with another guy. I practically left California because of it. I opened up to her, bared my soul, but I guess she wasn’t impressed. April didn’t want to know the real me. She just wanted to fool around. Apparently, I didn’t offer enough to hold her interest. She got bored and moved on.
    I’ll die if that’s how Katie thinks I view her.
    “But when I was holding you in my arms in that freezing cold parking lot, it’s like you shifted something inside of me. You fused together what was broken and made me whole again. It was an unbelievable feeling, like you were a superhero fixing me with your special powers.” I laugh, mocking myself for such a lame analogy. I’ll never be able to express aloud what I’m trying to explain. The only way I’ll ever convince her is by my actions, if she’d only