When You Walk Away

Loving Gator Tillman has never been easy, but Sadie believed what they had was worth every guarded conversation, every stubborn argument, and every part of himself he struggled to give her. Somewhere between exchanged house keys, clothes left in one another's bedrooms, and ordinary nights spent building a life neither of them had planned, she stopped imagining a future without him.

Gator did too, and that scared him more than he was willing to admit.

Convinced he will eventually become the kind of man who destroys everything he loves, Gator walks away before Sadie can leave him first. He expects the breakup to hurt. What he doesn't expect is for her to take him at his word, return his key, and lock the door behind him.

Now Gator must live with the future he chose to prevent and the unbearable realization that losing Sadie might not protect either of them. It may only prove that the greatest threat to what they built was never his father, his past, or the darkness he carries.

It was Gator himself.