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“Is that why you refuse to talk to me or let me touch you? Because you think I’m an imposter?”
She nods.
I can hear the shattering sound of my world splintering to pieces. Pieces so small, I will never be able to find them, let alone mend them together again.
When I first brought Annika to this island, I thought we’d find what we once had. Yes, she fought me a little, but she also laughed and fooled around. She danced for me, flirted, and sighed contently in my arms. She loved laying her head on my lap and looking at my face when I read for her and then demanded more.
It felt as if she still loved me.
When she apologized for shooting me, I believed her.
I believed that she had to make a choice, but the bitter truth is that she’ll never choose me over her family.
It’s probably unfair for me to make her do that, but I wanted her to pick me like she picked her brother that time.
I wanted it to beme.
I just never thought that my fixation and my plan to bring us close would push us further apart. I never thought I’d rob her of light and leave her as this broken person.
She looks nothing like my Annika.
There’s no trace of her cheerfulness, the constant mischievousness and innocence in her eyes, or the energy that bubbles from her pores.
She might have physically shot me, but I killed her.
And there’s only one way to bring her back to life.
Even if it means sacrificing my own in return.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Her brows crease. “Okay?”
“I’ll take you home.”
“You…you will?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
She shakes her head frantically, some of the light seeping back to her eyes. Slowly but steadily.
Fuck.
The knowledge that I nearly broke her spirit makes me want to shoot myself and, this time, never wake up.
That would be better than hearing the sound of my crumbling insides or witnessing her live without me.
It’d fucking rip me apart.
“Now, come down from the edge.” I offer her my hand, but she stares at it suspiciously.
We remain like that for a moment, her gaze sliding from my face to my hand and back again.
“Annika.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s raining.”
