Page 51 of Tormented

I’ve never trusted that fucker.

A heart can be broken. A heart can attach you irrevocably to something or someone that was never yours to keep. And a heart can make you act foolishly, impulsively, and dangerously. A heart is only good for the blood it pumps through your veins. Not for decision-making, and certainly not on this level.

So why is it I can’t ignore what my heart tries to say?

Because what you think is right is what you’ve been taught, not what you’ve learnt. Don’t let other people tell you how to live your life.

I guess that’s it. I pushed Sawyer away, rejected his theories, because even though he showed such clear interest in me for who I am, even though I’m clearly attracted to him, fascinated by him, he’s not what I’ve been taught to think I need. I’ve been told over and over, had it drilled into me over the years, that to settle my mind, to make me happy, I need to find a life partner who’s the opposite of me.

I need a normal, safe man.

Somebody approachable, outgoing, and whose influence will hopefully rub off and instill good habits in me.

The more I think on it, though, the more the thought seems ludicrous. I’m about as far from the white picket fence type girl a guy could get. The thought of domesticated bliss—school runs, baking, housework, and social clubs—makes me want to vomit.

But it must be right. It has to be? Why else would so many people all tell me the same thing? Stop thinking about my past, look forward, and act happy. That’s what I was told is the cure, so why would Sawyer and his demands to do the exact opposite of all that, be the right thing to do?

I’m so damn confused. Do I go with my head, believe what I’ve been taught? Or do I go with my heart and learn something new?

I guess when it comes down to it, whose judgment am I going to trust more? That of a bunch of people who seem to have a handle on life? Or my own, skewed and inexperienced as it is?

Nope. As always I have to trust what I’ve been told repeatedly. That a man as unstable and unpredictable as Sawyer could never be good to me.

That my heart is so scarred from the past it doesn’t understand what it needs.

That I’m best to leave Sawyer in Cali and forget that any of what went down between us even happened.

Because underneath it all, his heart probably doesn’t understand what it really wants either.