AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I didn’t say I don’t think you belong together,” Ellie said, and her face softened. “You and Nylah have always had a close relationship. If it were up to me and me alone, I would have thought it was a great match. The prophecy…Terra decreed that it’s not meant to be, not me.”
“Did you tell her that?” I demanded.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Ellie offered, but I shook my head. I would rather stay standing. I was wired and on edge, adrenaline pumping through my body, fueled by my frustration.
“I didn’t tell her anything, Dex,” she said.
“She hasn’t wanted to see me in over a week! What’s going on?” I scrubbed my hand down my face. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to make of this. I thought there was something.”
“What you feel for each other will never go away completely. Emotions and memories aren’t the same.”
“How can you love something you can’t remember?” I asked dully.
“I don’t know how it works or what’s going on,” Ellie said softly, and her features were pained.
She knew this was hard on me. At least there was that.
“I can’t do this,” I admitted, letting a part of me crumple. It was damn hard to keep strong all the time. “I can’t live a life without her wanting to see me.”
“She just needs time,” Ellie said.
“You keep saying that, but what if you’re wrong?” I asked. “What if this is all it will ever be? What if the time she needs away from me…is forever?”
Ellie’s face was sympathetic, and she stood, coming to me.
“It will be okay in the end, Dex,” she said, squeezing my arm. “And if it’s not okay…”
“You sound like she used to,” I said.
“She’s always been right, you know. Terra always makes sure things work out for the greater good, even if we don’t always see it at first. It’s not in her nature to leave things open ended without a reason why it happened at all—it was Nylah who taught me that. She taught me to keep holding on and trust that whatever is happening will sort itself out.”
“That Nylah is gone,” I said. “I don’t know if I believe that anymore.”
“I’ll keep believing it,” Ellie said, determined. “It’s going to be okay. Just keep faith.”
I nodded. Ellie was kind and sweet, and she cared, but I didn’t know if I believed her. How could it be? If I was with Nylah, apparently, we would lose each other. And if I wasn’t…I would lose her, anyway. There was no scenario in which Nylah and I won.
How could any of that be okay?
I walked to the arena to train the frustration and pain out of my system. I had to get rid of this burning anxiety in my chest somehow, and working out was the only way I knew how to get rid of it.
I warmed up with a jog. It turned into a sprint when it felt like something was snapping at my heels—my own demons were here, ready to beat me up.
What if I wasn’t good enough? What if I’d never been good enough, and Nylah had finally seen it because she’d gotten to know me through fresh eyes, starting from scratch? What if the person I was just didn’t cut it, and now that she wasn’t herself and didn’t know what we’d had growing up, she was at liberty to tell me that?
Not that she’d told me anything—she’d just stopped wanting to see me. Our last visit had been filled with sexual tension and affection like it used to be, and we’d nearly kissed. She’d wanted it as much as I had. I’d thought then that we would get past this, but now she didn’t want me at all.
I trained hard, pushing my body to its limits. I worked with equipment, lifting weights, adding in a run between every exercise until my lungs burned, my heart threatened to hammer right out of my chest, and my muscles screamed at me.
Clouds gathered above, slowly drowning out the sun. It was exactly how I felt.
Finally, I could barely breathe, and my body trembled, my muscles threatening to give out.
Still, the anguish I felt was settled firmly in my chest, burning, aching. I pressed my fingers against my sternum and winced.
I couldn’t do this. Not without her. I might have been able to do this without love if we were still as close as we’d been all my life, but with that gone…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live a life at the palace without Nylah in it.
I had to get away from here, where every single thing reminded me of what it used to be—reminded me of what I’d lost.
