I mumble thanks to Vix when she slides my plate of food next to me, but don’t look away from the screen as I build the scene. One word upon another until the sexual tension is so thick the reader will all but beg for it to be broken.

“What’s your problem, Luke?” I ask as he strides past me. The air is full of sounds and thick with the scents of the annual town carnival. The same carnival we shared our first kiss five years ago. “Hey. I’m talking to you,” I shout after him, but he keeps walking as if he can’t hear me. As if he doesn’t care and that hurts even worse.

It’s been a week since I’ve been back, and if there’s a way for him to avoid me, he’s made sure to find it

I should take the hint that we really are over. I should let go of the hope I’ve been holding close to my heart. And yet, I keep remembering the way he looked at me in the bar that first night back to town.

I know he still loves me.

Without giving it a second thought, I jog after him behind the Main Street Feed Store.

“Luke. Luke!” I shout until he stops and turns to face me. The muscle in his jaw twitches as the moonlight washes over his face and my heart falls to the ground.

Tears threaten, but I force myself to push them away.

“Why do you hate me?” I ask him, my voice so very quiet.

“I don’t hate you. I never have.” He takes a step toward me.

“Then why can’t you just be happy for me? Why can’t you be nice?” I all but beg and hate the desperation in my voice.

“I am being nice.”

“That’s bullshit. You’ve done everything you can to push me away or avoid me over the past week. You’ve purposefully—”

I go to grab his arm as he strides past me, and before I can process one heartbeat to the next, Luke has me spun around and pinned to the wall of the building behind me. His hands tighten on my wrists as he stares at me in a frustrated anger I’ve never seen from him before.

“Don’t push me, Sophie,” he grits out.

Those words urge me to do just that as I try to yank my wrists from his grip. “Why? Why not, huh?”

“Because this town, this place, it’s not what’s best for you. You don’t belong here anymore. We don’t want you here anymore.”

I hiccup over a sob as his words tear through me and break my heart all over again. “Luke. Please.” The first tear slips down my cheek, and I hate myself for it. “Why can’t we at least be friends? Why can’t—”