‘This can’t work Logan.

I’m not the same girl that climbed into your trailer, I’m not the same girl who hung on your every word, or who slept with your tags around my neck.

I’m not her anymore. But I’m still too much like her.

I can’t stay this close to you and still have all of this between us. And yet…with nothing keeping us apart.

That girl can’t do it anymore, and this girl…won’t.’

The speech ran through her head, practised, perfect, but when she looked at him – bags at her feet – she could only say, “I’ll miss you.”

He hated it.

The thought made his knuckles itch.

He’d always prided himself on being a loner; was one by nature. Always leaving, running, never looking back.

Of course he respected her need to go, understood. Maybe even envied it.

He just wasn’t used to being the one left behind.

Of never seeing dark brown eyes, not having this one person address him as a man, not a beast.

But he had no real claim to her, couldn’t tell her not to do what he lived by.

Instead, he gave her a smile, “See ya kid.” And watched her leave.