Forever My Girl (The Beaumont Series)

front of me. Her eyes drop, she steps back and her chest starts moving in and out as she tries to catch her breath. My heart breaks at this sight, worse than the night when I broke up with her. That night I took the coward route.
    “I’m glad you’re here, you must be tired.” Her hand finds mine, she tries to pull me into her dorm room but I’m not budging.
    “You don’t want to come in?”
    I do, but I can’t. If I go in I’ll never leave and nothing will change. My life will be the same pattern over and over again and if I don’t change it I’m going to go nuts.
    I shake my head just slightly but it’s enough to peak her attention. “Something wrong, Liam?”
    My throat starts to close, my heart… it feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest. I know I’m doing the right thing, but why does it feel so horrible.
    “I dropped out of school.”
    The first look of what is about to be a hissy fit spreads across her face. I deviated from the plan. The all-American plan where I become an NFL football player and we live in a quiet neighborhood raising our two children, a boy and a girl, and she travels to my games and never misses one because she’s my personal cheerleader.
    “Okay, why?”
    “I… um… I can’t—”
    “Can’t what? You’re scaring me, baby. Come in and we’ll talk about it. We’ll call your coach and fix this.”
    I feel a sense of relief wash over me when she says we’ll call my coach. That is exactly what I don’t want and I know I’ve made the right decision. I don’t want to play football anymore.
    “I can’t be with you anymore, Josephine.” I don’t look at her when I say these words. I turn and walk away, ignoring her voice as she calls my name. I run down the hall, zigzagging through the people that just witnessed my girl and I break up.
     I want to step forward and wrap her in my arms and tell her that night I made the biggest mistake of my life when I left her there. I should’ve busted in and packed her bags and taken her with me. The two day drive to Los Angeles would’ve been so much better with her curled up in my arms at night while we slept in the bed of the truck. My breakfast of Doritos and Coke would’ve been the best one I ever had because she would’ve shared it with me.
    But instead I spent two days driving with tears streaking down my face because I did the most horrible thing I had ever done. I broke my own heart when I told her I was done.
    “Jojo—”
    She puts her hand up and I stop talking. When she looks up, it’s that night all over again. Her make-up is running down her face, black and heavy, leaving a path of pain ruining her beauty.
    “What was so important that you just left me?”
    I sigh. I’m not sure how to explain Betty and the day that changed my life.
    “I told you, I needed something different.”
    “It wasn’t me?”
    “No.” I shake my head to emphasis my point. “It wasn’t you. It was never you. I hate myself for not taking you with me. I should’ve, but I didn’t think you’d go and I didn’t want you to tell me no.”
    “So, you just break my heart and leave me to raise a baby by myself?”
    “God damn it, Jojo. If I knew about the baby I would’ve stayed and figured something out. I would’ve married you and gone back to school.”
    “But you wouldn’t have been happy?”
    I can’t answer her and she knows that. My silence is enough.  
    Josie takes a deep breath and nods. “So you went to California and became this big-time musician. You know what the funny thing is? I didn’t think you liked the guitar that much. I know you would play while singing to me, but I thought you were always kidding. That sort of makes me a shitty girlfriend.”
    “You didn’t think I was good?”
    She shakes her head. “No, it’s not that. I just thought it was a joke to you, something you did to irritate your dad.”
    “I always played. It made me calm and helped me express what I was feeling. When I went off to college, I played more and more. I went to an open mic night on campus and played. I loved it, loved every damn second of it and I tried to tell you, but you weren’t listening. You just wanted to talk about football and your classes and how Mason and Katelyn were doing. You wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell you my head was going to explode and that I woke up each night with my heart racing because I was so freaking lonely and hated school. My three best friends were at a different