Tear You Apart by Megan Hart Page A

not by accident or coercion or because I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing. I fucked Will Roberts because I wanted him.
    That’s when the shudder hits me, a tremor in my fingers, a twisting in my guts that bends me in half. My heart pounds so hard I press my fingers to it as if I can keep it from beating right out of my chest. I shake and shake and shake. My breath whistles in my throat until I press my lips together and force myself not to breathe for the count of one, two, three.
    Calmer, steadier, I open my eyes.
    Will stands in the doorway as if it’s a line he’s not allowed to cross. “Hey. Coffee?”
    I should tell him I can’t go. I shouldn’t want to go. But I’m already standing, ready to follow him anywhere he takes me.

Chapter Seven
    Because I still haven’t learned the neighborhood, we walk around the block until we find a place. Any other street in New York would have a dozen coffee/bagel/pastry shops, but not this one. We settle for a small diner that shows off what looks like decent pastries and questionable sandwiches in the case by the hostess stand. The coffee, as it turns out, is terrible. Will orders a slice of German chocolate cake. I ask for a muffin.
    “Sugar?” Will asks, fingers hovering over the small ceramic container in which the sweetener packets have been shoved haphazardly, a rainbow of pastels.
    “Two. Please,” I add quickly. So polite. So distant. Three days ago I had him naked and inside me, and now I can barely let my fingers touch his when he hands me the packets. I taste the coffee with a grimace and ask apologetically, “Can I have another, please?”
    We warm our hands on the mugs and stare at anything except each other. The waitress brings the cake, but tells me they’re out of muffins. My disappointment is out of proportion to my need for a shitty diner muffin, and I can’t stop the frown. She offers cake, but I don’t want cake. Or pie. Really, I think as I watch her rattling off the list of desserts, all I want is for her to shut up and go away. I order lemon meringue and expect to hate it when it comes.
    “So,” Will says after a second, when she’s finally gone and we have no excuse to keep ignoring each other. “How are you?”
    “Fine. You?” I sip bad coffee and burn my tongue.
    At first, he says nothing. Then he gives me a slow smile, sweeter than the extra sugar I added to my coffee. His smile is the kiss of ocean spray and the keening cry of gulls.
    “I wasn’t sure you’d be at the gallery today.” A pause as perhaps he considers what to say next. “But I was hoping you would be. That’s why I stopped by.”
    Tension eases inside me, and I find my own smile. “I’m glad you did.”
    Again, he says nothing.
    “Will...” I begin, stuttering on the flavor of his name. I can’t decide exactly what it is, but it feels gritty. Like sugar. No, like sand. “About what happened...”
    An emotion I can’t decipher flashes across his face, and everything about him goes very still. His fingers turn the coffee mug. Turn and turn and turn. He leans forward, shoulders hunching, and rests his elbows on the table.
    “Yeah. About that.”
    Before he can say more, my phone trills. I didn’t program that ring tone, Jacqueline did, to set her apart from her sister and, I suppose, from everyone else. I’d ignore the call, but the look on his face says he’s expecting me to take it. And the truth is, I’m glad for an excuse to stall this conversation, because I’m not at all sure where it’s going.
    “Hi, honey.”
    Jac walked at nine months and talked at eleven, and she hasn’t slowed down or stayed quiet since. She is my in-charge child, bold and opinionated, capable of compassion but not so great with tact. She resembles me more than her sister does, but she’s absolutely her father’s girl.
    “I wanted to wish you Happy Birthday today, because I’m going to be camping on the weekend. No cell service.” She launches into the