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He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was.
Good, I thought. It was about time that Apollo Callahan realised that not everybody loved him, his actions had consequences, and I was done bowing and scraping to his perceived superiority.
It was time I acknowledge that I’d lost Apollo the day that Valen had come into our lives. The day his father took him from me. I’d lost him and I would never be enough to help him find his way home. That wasn’t a failing on my part, I wouldn’t let myself ever believe it was. He wasn’t ready and I wasn’t waiting for him. He’d already shown me that my all wasn’t enough to change him. Maybe one day, he’d find someone he could love enough to find his way back. But she sure as shit wasn’t going to be me.
“Because we will be keeping up the charade, Apollo,” I continued, my voice full of an authority I’d rarely fully flexed. “You and Valen will go on as you always have. Friends. Confidants. Partners in crime. You and I will do what is necessary to keep people thinking we’re still engaged. Somehow, we’ll work out how to either live this lie or get out of it without killing anyone. But I’m not in the mood for that right now and I’ll let you know when I am. Until then, it’s back to faking it until we’re forced to make it. Understood?”
Apollo looked like he was going to argue, but something was holding him back. He didn’t look to Valen. He kept his eyes on me and I saw the resignation hit him. He knew he’d cocked up royally. He knew it and he was owning up to his mistake.
Finally, he nodded and sighed. “Okay. Yeah. I agree. As much as I want to be, I’ll never be able to be the man you need me to be. We’re just not…”
“Like that,” I finished with him, and he nodded again.
“You’re in charge, Harlow,” he said, his tone promising more than his words ever would. “We go at your pace, your instruction, everything.”
I nodded. “Good.”
Apollo did now look at Valen. “What about Valk?” he asked.
I glared. “What about him?”
“You said you’re in love with him–”
“I say a lot of things about him that he doesn’t deign to comment on,” I said harshly.
“Well, are you going to give him another chance?” Apollo asked.
I wanted to ask him if he was seriously playing wingman right now. As much as a part of me was proud of him for trying to mend the cracks between them in the only way he could see right now, that wasn’t in my best interest, and I didn’t want to be between these two men any longer than I had to.
“Another chance?” I scoffed. “After the way he threw me away?”
Apollo was clearly at DEFCON 1 wingman mode. “He was thinking of me, of the contract between our fathers–”
“Yours and mine, or yours and his?” I asked, sceptically.
Apollo nodded. “All right, fair. He was just trying to do right by you–”
“If Valen wanted to do right by me,” I said, looking at Valen but continuing to talk to Apollo very pointedly, “then he’d speak to me. He’d be the one championing his chances–”
“Would it make a fucking difference?” Valen growled, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
“Weirdly, Valen,” I said, all sarcastic awe, like it was a novel idea. “Yeah, it might.”
We all looked between each other like we were waiting for anyone else to speak. Apollo was making eyes at Valen like he was telling him he needed to say something.
“Well,” Apollo finally cried. “Fucking say something!”
“What do you want me to say, princess?” Valen snarled. “You want me to say I’m in love with you? You want me to say I want the world to know you’re mine? That my heart could never belong to another? That I’ll die with your name on my lips and your smile in my mind?”
He spoke sarcastically, scathingly even. Like it was all a joke. Like he could never possibly think any of those things. I should have said I knew better. I should have said I knew he just didn’t know how to talk about it and that was the only way he could. But they’d both hurt me, and I didn’t want to know better just then.
“I’ve heard enough lies from the both of you,” I told him, feeling my heart breaking all over again.
Valen’s scowl deepened. “Because all our kind are liars.”
“You’ve shown me I can’t trust your words. You tell me you’re done with me, that I was just fun, a sick game. You tell me you’ll love me until you die. I’ve got fucking whiplash from whatever high and mighty ideals you think you’re following, and I deserve better! I did nothing but give you everything I could, Valen. I gave you both everything I could give you. I gave Apollo what I thought he needed to save him from this path of destruction our fucking world has set him on, and it wasn’t enough. I gave you – Valen – I gave you all of me. Everything I was it was yours. And you threw it back at me. You told me it wasn’t enough. So, I’m done with both of you. Only absolutely epic levels of grovelling could save you now, Valk, and, even then, I don’t know if I can forgive you.” I took a deep breath as I realised how much my voice was trembling. “Although I doubt that I’d ever be enough for you to even apologise, let alone grovel.”
I looked at them both one more time, took a deep breath, and started walking to the door.
