My remaining time with Kiera was both heaven and hell. I cherished every second we spent together as she showed me all her favorite places growing up, and I dreaded knowing that I would be leaving her again soon. But overriding all of that turmoil was a dark cloud of guilt. Every time I looked at her, I felt ashamed. Whenever she hugged me, I felt like I’d betrayed her. I knew I should tell her what was going on with me, I knew it with every fiber of my being, but still, whenever I opened my mouth—fully intent on confessing my sin—the words wouldn’t form. I simply couldn’t tell her. It killed me.

When it was finally time for me to go, when I was finally back on a plane, heading to my band, I felt…devastated. I lied to her. I flat-out lied to her. I hadn’t said something so blatantly false since that little mix-up with her sister. Her father was right about me…I didn’t deserve her.

The melancholy inside me was nearly lethal when I was finally on the ground, in a taxi, heading back to the buses. Fucking Gavin. If he would just leave me alone, I wouldn’t be in this mess. One more pain he’d caused me. Why was he so determined to ruin every aspect of my life? Why couldn’t he take the hint and leave me alone? Hailey had been about to give up on me…why couldn’t he?

I wanted to toss my phone in a garbage can, maybe flush it down a toilet. But I wanted to talk to Kiera. Maybe I could talk to someone at the phone company…get the number changed. But again, I wanted to talk to Kiera. And how would I explain changing my number to her? I couldn’t, not without explaining everything. I was trapped. Once again, I was trapped.

Wanting to change my mood, I tried to focus on something positive. Making love to Kiera Christmas Eve…Christmas morning with her family. Our secret meetups at night once Kiera’s parents had gone to bed. She hadn’t let me back into her bedroom, maybe too afraid of getting caught, but she’d come down to me every night, and we’d cuddled on the couch until the early hours of the morning. And I’d made love to her on that couch a couple times…like this morning, our last morning. I could still feel her lips on mine, her body under my fingers, her soft moans in my ear as I pressed into her, her whispered words of affection, the sound she made when she came…

God, I missed her. Already.