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Because being everything Lily needed was my greatest purpose. Those words had been engrained in me from the time my old man handed me my first blade.
Whenever she needed me, I was there.
Her wants and needs and dreams. Her enemies. They were all mine.
Until they weren’t. Until my wants and needs turned into my own.
That was the moment I lost her.
No matter how I viewed it, no matter my reasoning . . . it became painfully apparent that Lily was only my purpose when she should’ve been my life.
I’d thought she was.
“What if it was her? What if it was her who couldn’t be what you needed? Who couldn’t handle what you are. Who ruined the relationship.”
Jessica had been wrong . . . and so right. I hated that a girl as infuriating as her could give me clarity on something I’d agonized over for months.
Lily had never been meant for me. But I could’ve gone my whole life without realizing it if I hadn’t stopped being what she needed.
“How can anything be for me when I don’t want this, Kieran? You and I never wanted this. But you changed your mind and left me to slowly suffocate in this prison alone.”
While she might’ve understood me, might’ve loved me in a way that came with knowing my darkness over a lifetime, she still hated what I was.
“I never wanted Nightshade, Kieran. I wanted you.”
And the relationship . . . we’d ruined that together. In our own ways.
“You’ve been saying ‘what about us,’ and this is what you’ve been doing?” Her betrayal burned deep, the knife in my back making it difficult to breathe. I swiped a vase off the end table. “Fucking what about us?”
“You left me,” she screamed. “You broke my heart and your promises and left me here. There was no us left.”
I’d thought I was destroyed over losing Lily.
Now I realized the hardest part of her leaving was because I’d failed my purpose.
Failed her. Failed us.
Failed at being what I never should’ve been.
Hers.
I was only a street past where Beck always stopped me the next night when I felt eyes on me.
And there wasn’t a soul on the street with me.
That I could see anyway.
Head high.
Shoulders back.
Lips twisted.
Eyes laughing.
I pretended to adjust my bag on my shoulder. When my hand ran back across my body, I slipped the knife from my bra and flicked the blade free.
Despite the urge to, I didn’t run.
