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“No, actually,” Tempest said. “Absolutely nothinghasto go wrong. Things could just,this time, go your way…”
I hoped she was right.
I reallywantedher to be right, because I hated this feeling, as if I were missing something significant by not freaking out.
Like tragedy was just waiting in my blind spot while I got too comfortable with peace.
Ah.
Peace.
I felt it right in my grasp, so solid, in a way that I probably shouldn’t.
But here I was.
And it wasn’t even that I was under some teenage delusion that Isaiah and I were going to be together forever now.
I wasn’t thinking that at all.
I understood, fully, that not only was Isaiah human, he was a Thorn. We weren’t far enough removed from the Garden that those tendencies were stripped entirely from his nature.
He could disappear into the night, never to be seen or heard from again.
Heprobablywould.
It wasn’t that I thought something like that wouldn’t hurt, it was just that… I recognized the possibility – thelikelihood. But I also knew that if itdidhappen like that… I would be okay.
The recognition of all that didn’t make me any more prepared to, after I’ve gotten off the phone with Tempest and come back inside, find the bed empty.
And not just the bed,the room.
The entire villa.
I swallowed hard, running through scenarios in my mind for what could have happened, before ultimately admitting to myself the most likely truth.
Exactly what I’d told myself to expect.
He’d left.
Remember, Dacia. You just had this talk with yourself.
Yes, I had, but that didn’t make it sting any less - especially when a glance at my phone revealed that I’d missed text message from him.
According to the timestamp, it had to have come while I was still on the phone with Temp.
Two words that hurt a lot more than I wanted them to.
“I’m sorry.”
Of course he was.
I took myself to the shower where I stayed longer than necessary.
When I finally came out, the first thing I did was strip the sheets off my bed, since I planned on getting right back in it. I was probably spending the day there. The last thing I needed was to spend that time immersed in his lingering scent.
I replaced them with fresh linens from the closet and then dropped the used ones in the bin for the laundry service to pick up later.
My phone started chiming with the standard texts and all of that from Alicia, Loren, Pen, and the others I’d gotten to know all checking in.
