Wild Heart Read Free Page B

is screwed up in disgust as she twists her neck back and forth, frowning down at her high heeled shoes sticking into the dirt floor. She’s the complete opposite of Emerson in all things; looks, personality, and attitude. There’s a reason I picked her.
    “You ready?” Nadia asks, glancing between the beer, Emerson, and me.
    I get up and walk towards her. I don’t look at Emerson again. I can’t. She’s my past, and that’s where I want to leave her.
    Throwing my arm around Nadia’s shoulders, we walk out of the barn, together, even though it feels wrong. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
    Nadia follows me without a word, her body leaning into mine. Each step I take away from Emerson makes it easier to breathe. She’s unhealthy as hell for me, especially now.
    I make it a few feet out of that damn barn before I hear, “Night, Z.” My back stiffens and my step falters at hearing her call me Z again after all these years.
    That hole in my chest expands, tearing wide open.
    My name on her lips is so fucking bittersweet.
    I don’t say anything. I just keep walking, scared of what I might do if I stop.

I’m jealous .
    Maybe I’m envious .
    Hell, it’s probably a bit of both. There’s a difference, yet both seem fitting for the current situation I find myself in.
    I should have known what I was walking back into. No one leaves and expects to just glide right back into someone’s life. Time doesn’t stop because you left, and it sure as shit doesn’t heal all wounds, especially when those wounds are still raw, bloody, and painful.
    Zac hasn’t forgiven me. I don’t blame him, but it doesn’t make it any easier. My love for him never went away. If anything, it’s grown.
    Watching Zac, my Zac, sling an arm around his girlfriend’s slim shoulders and walk away from me hurts. I don’t care if I have absolutely no right to the feelings I’m having, but he was mine first, and to me, he will always be mine. No amount of time or distance will change that.
    Zac was my everything from the moment I met him. My best friend. My boyfriend. My heart and soul. In my eyes, the sun set and rose with him. He was the axis in which my entire fucking world revolved around and no one can take that away from me, especially not some slim shouldered twit.
    There is not a memory, a photo, or story of my youth that doesn’t involve Zac in some way. I have never forgotten or moved on from him, and that’s scary. First love is like that. It’s intense, it’s deep, it’s life-changing, and it can be heartbreaking .
    Fortunately for me, it wasn’t my heart that was broken.
    Walking out of the barn, I catch Zac opening the door to a sporty little Benz. Leaning his large frame against it, he holds it open as the brunette beauty slides in. She offers him a sexy side-eye, and he returns it with a wink of his steel blue eyes. I can see something pass between them. It’s something intimate, something special. Something that was once mine .
    Jealous .
    Green with it .
    She fires her car up and he leans down to kiss her before he shuts the door and she pulls out, waving sweetly at Julia who’s waving back from the porch.
    A deep, dark shade of green .
    I feel like such a creep standing off in the shadows, but I can’t move. I have to watch.
    Looking at him is like taking a step back in time. He’s just as tall, but bulkier and more broad shouldered. His dark hair is a mess, and a scruffy five-o’clock shadow covers his face. Wearing the same blue flannel, grease stained Carhartt, he looks like my Zac.
    He doesn’t turn around, even though he knows I’m here. He walks up to his mom and kisses her on the cheek, bids my folks good night, and says something to his dad and brother before he walks off the porch, his back to me the entire time.
    Not once does he acknowledge me.
    I feel like a stranger, and at the same time, it’s so familiar it hurts. That was me— that was us—years ago. Nostalgia burns in my chest and tears fill my