Page 109 of Between Love & Ruin

The officer shakes his head. “You can’t enter without a boarding pass.”

I look past him trying to see where she went, but the crowd swallows her whole.

I can’t see her anymore, and the rest of my resolve shatters.

“Please.”

“Sir—”

“Please. I just need to talk to her.”

“I can’t let you through.”

I turn toward the security area again, searching for even a glimpse of her.

But Nothing.

She’s gone.

Sienna Hayes

It’s been a day since I arrived in Chicago. The place feels so foreign that it doesn’t even remotely resemble home.

A day full of crying, of dreading this decision, of doubting whether I made the right decision or not.

But every time I think about what happened, I get this bitter feeling crawling up my chest that I can’t shake off no matter how much I want to.

This isn’t even about Dominic hiding the truth from me because a part of me understands why he must have done that. It doesn’t make it any better. It doesn’t make it right. But it helps me know he did it out of care. As stupid as it might be.

But it’s about me finally taking some control of my life back.

For half my life I let my relatives make decisions for me, then Mark and now Dominic thought he could do that too?

Out of all people, him? That’s what hurts the most.

And that’s what I am about to undo just now.

I am done letting people think I am scared, that they have power over my life and my decisions.

And doing that begins from the one place where everything went downhill.

I don’t even know what I am doing here, to be honest. When I left, I thought I would go back to my old place I shared with Mark and get some of my stuff back.

But now as I stand in front of the building, a disgusting wave crashes over me, making me feel this intense urge to puke.

I press a calming hand on my chest, telling my heart to calm down.

“It’s okay,” I tell myself. “We are going to be fine. He’s probably not even inside.”

Or so I hope. I am not about to see his smug face and do something incorrigible.

I can’t even imagine sharing space with him for more than five minutes now. I just need to get my stuff and be done with it for the rest of my life.

Just because I broke up with Dominic—for however long—doesn’t mean that I would ever regret breaking up with that piece of shit Mark.

Or as Dominic liked to call him.

I take out the spare key from my pocket before unlocking the door and stepping inside.