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“I’ll get my stuff and leave.” I stand, the chair screeching with the force. Unable to stay, I hurry away, needing to get out of here before I break down. Before I finally crumble.
Never has someone landed a hit like this. I never let them close enough. But Layla?
She’s my weakness.
And now I’m nothing.
I’m a broken man.
She doesn’t call after me as I pack and leave. She watches me go, our eyes meeting one last time before I turn away and leave for good. I leave my keys behind, wanting her to feel safe. I can give her this one last thing, this home we made. The money, the safety, she can have it all.
None of it means anything without her anyway.
CHAPTER22
Layla
He left.
Just like that, he left.
He didn’t fight me on my request for a divorce. He didn’t shout and yell at me to get out of his house. He didn’t fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness.
He just . . . left.
I had been so angry and sure that ending this chapter in my life was what I wanted that my grief only surfaced with the loud bang of the front door. The sound’s so final and so real that my knees buckle, making me slip to the floor as I sob my eyes out. Unable to stop the tears from falling, I let them do their worst as the river of misery pours out of me.
Even when I didn’t know it, I always had Alaric in my life—my guardian, my angel, my protector—and now he’s gone, and for the first time, I am truly alone.
I feel scared and lost, wishing we hadn’t broken each other’s hearts.
I wish we could be different and our lives could be perfect and happy, but that’s a fantasy and not reality. This is real life. It’s raw, fucked up, and filled with broken people just trying to survive and find happiness in those broken shards. Miraculously enough, for a while, I did.
With him.
Now that happiness is gone, and I can barely breathe with the thought of a life without him. Panic starts to take hold, and I rub my chest where it feels like a raw wound has ripped open inside it.
The tears eventually subside, and I fall asleep right there, curled up on the floor, holding my broken heart as I pray to the stars above that I haven’t just made the worst mistake of my life.
The joyful life I always dreamed of having was just stolen from me, and to my shame, it wasn’t some villain from my past who took it out of my hands. No, it was me who cruelly let go of the one chance I had for true love.
I’m my worst enemy.
I’m the villain in my story.
For that, my heartache will undoubtedly be my end, my ruin.
Without Alaric, what chance of happiness will I ever have?
* * *
It’s been a week since I watched Alaric leave his house keys and walk through the front door without even a backward glance. I should be happy that he respected my wishes. I should be thrilled that he was the one who packed his things and left me and Zoey in this house. I should be fucking ecstatic that it was so easy to push a ruthless killer out the door and out of my life.
So why do I feel none of those things?
Why do I feel this terrible ache in my heart as if someone punched a hole in my chest and is ripping me apart? I feel like I’m dying. Slowly. Ever so slowly with each second that he’s gone. It hurts even more that I let my feelings slip and he didn’t even seem to notice. I only realized the word “love” had slipped out when I was yelling after he left.
God, how did my life take such a turn?
