He stands, and he’s so much taller than me. I forget about our friends, he takes up so much space out here on this balcony and in me still. There’s this part of me, and it’s not as small as I wish it was—I don’t think there’s anything in the world I want more than to bury my face in his chest and cry. The way I did my whole life because he’s always been a safe space and he always made me feel better.
Bohdan gives a final, resigned shake of his head. “I was going to tell you, Sloan ... I swear. But this ... this is why I waited, why I didn’t want ... how was I supposed to tell you that? That you gave up so much for me and it all turned into nothing?”
“Nothing?” I choke. “There you go with that word again.Nothing. You know you told me that once, right? The one time you fucking deigned to talk to me? You said you had nothing left. But there I was. A living, breathing person, lying beside you in bed every night and begging you to let me love you and take care of you the way you took care of me.” Tears blur my vision, and I think they slice me open when they slide down my face. The way my heart stumbles, it does feel a bit like I’m bleeding out. I press a palm to my chest. “That almost breaks my heart, Bohdan. Almost makes me feel sorry for you. That you think you were nothing. I gave things up foryou. And I did it happily, becauseyou were enough for me, but apparently, I wasn’t enough for you.”
I dig my palms into my eyes, a sob sneaks up my spine, but his voice, unrestrained and wavering and wild, rings out, fighting for me, the way I wish he would have back then.
“What do I need to do to show you? You want me on my knees?” He takes a step closer to me, not measured, hardly steady at all, and he does drop to his knees. His hands find my waist, his thumbs press into my hips, and I feel them through the silk of my dress—firm, warm. Much steadier than he looks. His voice cracks when he keeps talking. “There. I’m on my knees, Sloan. You want me to crawl? I’ll fucking crawl for you. In front of our friends. In front of every single person on this fucking ship, if that’s what it takes for you to realize you’re enough. That it was always about me, and it was never about you.”
Tia snaps her fingers, her voice a bit like the lighthouse sounding out in the night, trying to warn us that we’re getting too close to shore and we’re going to crash. “Bohdan, you’ve done enough.”
“I love you, and I never fucking stopped.” Bohdan shakes his head, and if I believed enough about myself to believe I was someone worth crying over, I’d say that there might be tears pooling along the bottom of his lash line.
“Bohdan,” Jay cuts in, voice laced with something like warning.
“Let’s take a minute.” Talon raises his hands, and tries to give us all a strained smile.
Bohdan doesn’t seem to hear them.
But he hears me.
“Stop,” I whisper softly. It’s quite the sight, and once upon a time I would have said this was all I wanted. Bohdan finally cracking open his chest, giving me a glimpse of what was going on inside him. But this isn’t how I wanted it to happen, it’sdark and cavernous and sad in there, and I think there’s still something horribly, horribly wrong inside me that nothing can fix right now. I reach out and brush his hair off his face. His eyes shutter closed and he leans into my palm at my next words. “I’m saying stop now, Bohdan.”
He does. Right away.
He doesn’t get off his knees, but he exhales and presses a fist to his mouth.
He stays there when I take a measured step back, when Tia’s hand slides into mine. When her arm wraps around my shoulders and she guides me back towards the suite.
I look back when I hear him say, “I love you.”
I leave anyway.
Just like he did.
Sloan
You’d think it’d be one of the worst nights of my life.
Ranked third of all time, maybe. Or that it would be a toss-up between the night Bohdan got hurt, the night he left, and this one. The night I realized the only person I need to love right now is myself.
But it’s not. Not really.
Because there are other people here that love me, and the prospect doesn’t feel as scary as it has my entire life.
Tia crawls into bed with me and braids my hair. Talon brings me a glass of ice water. Jay hugs me longer than I think he ever has.
And Bohdan stays away because I asked him to stop.
My worst fear came true—served on a silver platter to the cruelest parts of my brain.
I sit with that, all flayed open and exposed, and there’s no Bohdan here to tell me facts that suggest otherwise.
I sleep, exhausted but undisturbed and dreamless, until the morning light spills across the floor.
Tia shifts, her curls just peeking up from underneath the duvet when I get up. It’s early, but I feel a bit like watching the ship get closer and closer to the port.
The door creaks, but it doesn’t disturb her.
