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“I wanted to see how you were doing.”
I narrow my eyes and start counting off my fingers. “Well, let’s see. My father is currently a missing person, but we can’t get the police involved. My sister is in a coma that she may never wake up from. And my mother died a few days ago and I’m the only one in my family who knows she’s gone. Oh, and yeah—I’m also pregnant with my future brother-in-law’s baby!”
I suck in a breath at the end, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I try again, but that doesn’t work, either. Every breath I take in feels like it’s stealing oxygen from my lungs, not giving me any. My head starts to pound and collapse in on itself and my chest is deflating andfuck, fuck, fuck,I’m gasping and twitching and the world is blackening around the edges and—
“Breathe.”
Before I can stop him, Ilarion wraps his arms around me. My back presses against his chest and I feel his lips at my ear. “Breathe,” he rasps again. His palms flatten against my abdomen, huge and hot.
And all of a sudden, I can breathe.
The moment that first gust of air rushes into my lungs, the rest comes easier. I feel myself relaxing. The pressure soothing. The pain disappearing.
Is this what I needed all this time? Did I need to be held?
Or did I just need to be held byhim?
“L-let me go, Ilarion,” I mumble, but there’s not an ounce of fight in my body.
He must feel that, because he doesn’t release me. He doesn’t even loosen his grip. He just holds me as though our lives depend on it.
Hot, confused tears sting at the corners of my eyes. Over the distant treeline, the sun is setting. Something about that catches in my head.The sun is setting… The sun is setting…
Oh, fuck.The sun is setting.
On the third day.
Seventy-two hours have passed.
55
TAYLOR
“Oh, God,” I whisper. I might have fallen to the ground if Ilarion weren’t holding me up. “T-three days… It’s been three days.”
“Shh,” he murmurs in my ear with an easy confidence that just has me unraveling even faster. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not!” I stammer through my tears. “Nothing’s going to be okay. I’ve lost my mom and my sister in the same damn week. And I’ve probably lost my dad, too.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. The silence only makes it worse.
When he finally releases me, he does it gently. I feel the cold tickle of air nipping at my exposed skin. It feels like invisible snakes taking bites at me from every angle. I feel vulnerable on a skin-deep level, a soul-deep level. More vulnerable than I’ve ever felt in my whole cursed life.
I keep my gaze trained on the gravel footpath beneath me. I still can’t look him in the eye. If I do, I’m scared he’ll see all the betrayal I’ve been carrying around in my head these last few days.
“You should be up there with her,” I remind him.
“Why?” he asks in that blunt way that always feels like whiplash even when I’m expecting it. “She doesn’t know I’m there. I don’t believe in empty gestures.”
I sigh. “What do you believe in, Ilarion?”
“Before you? Very little. But lately…more than I once did.”
I asked the question, but now, I’m scared to push this conversation further. He’s not touching me anymore, and I hate that my body misses that. Even the distance between us now feels offensive to me.
He’s not yours…
And yet he doesn’t feel like Celine’s anymore, either.
