Ache for You (Trapped in Three Hill Book 1) by Nancy Beaudet Page A

endure.
                  I had the taste of him in my memories and as vivid as it was, it was nothing compared to this. This is truly bliss. Everything about it. About him. I feel like a drug addict in search of another fix. I’ve never been a big drinker but right now I’m throwing back shots and dancing in a club all alone, my body whispering to the music. I understand every lyric. Every song about heartache is one I understand.
                  This is something grand.
                  How did I get by without this for so long? I wasn’t even gone that long. I managed to run away for a whole month. Thirty days of pure fucking loneliness I was rancid with depression.
                  I was too terrified to reach out for the fear that no one wanted to hear my voice to begin with. No one wanted me around. I had accepted that. Convinced myself of it.
                  The problem with being truly sick is there is no cure for it. Death does not erase mental illness.
                  I am not reborn. I am still sick. Held down by it. My brain is unable to process reason. Mal could look me straight in the eyeballs and ask me to marry him right now, and I would still laugh out loud. I don’t deal well with anything real.
                  That’s why I chickened out. Am I a coward for taking the hard way out? I don’t think so. I felt trapped. Alone. Like I had nowhere to go.
                  I could have gone home, stayed under the blankets for a while in my old bedroom. I moved out without telling Mal. I didn’t want him to know, for fear that he would demand checking my new place out or he wouldn’t care at all. That was the line we had drawn, the line we could not cross.
                  He could never care enough. Even when we fought, and he told me to get lost, I was angry that he didn’t chase me down the block. Isn’t that messed up? I wanted to get lost so that he would ride in and save me from my thoughts. I wanted to make him cry to understand that he felt the way I did. I always deep down felt like I was somewhat replaceable to Mal.
                  I needed him, and he showed up. That was never somehow enough.
                  I know that I’m not making any sense now. I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now. I rest my head back down.

   How Dare You? - Mal
     
                  I can’t move. I don’t want to.
                  Flo is on my chest. Curled into a small green ball and I feel alive now more than I ever thought possible. I feel real.
                  “I love you,” I tell Flo. “I have always loved you. I’m in love with you, and I will always be in love with you.”
                  Why does it hurt to say the truth? It shouldn’t. This much I know.
                  I’ve told hundreds of girls that I loved them before now—okay, maybe not hundreds. Maybe ten or fifteen or so but you get where I’m going don’t you? Why did that not hurt at all until now?
                  I feel broken glass whenever I try to move.
                  I move my hands to her back and slowly drag them down, touching all of the PG parts of Flo. The R rated is what I want right now. I won’t take it though.
                  I would die if I woke up without her after having her back. My hands cup her ass. 
                  “Why are you wearing such rough pants?” I ask. The hard material scrapes my skin.
                  I remember. Just like that. It all comes back. These are the clothes she was wearing in the description on the missing posters. The picture I shared on Facestory . I liked it and shared it again. No one commented. What do you even say to that?
                  “I’m sorry man?”
                  “My