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My teeth ground together. Truth snarled in my soul.
Wrong...I choose you over myself.
I choose not to hurt you when I’m dead.
I didn’t reply as we stalked through the dark, our hearts aching, our feet hissing in the sand, watched over by judging trees and gossiping bushes. By the time we stripped out of our wet clothes and dressed in drier things, the strain between us had reached feverish agony.
I hated that I’d hurt her.
I cursed her for hurting me.
I wished things could be different—that I was free to find my own place, my own work, my own life. A life that was separate from the Taylors so I might, one day, deserve Neri for my own.
But that would never happen.
I would never be given asylum—regardless of what forms I filled in or pleas I made. It would never happen because of what my family was back home. What my last name truly was.
A secret I’d only found out the night we’d boarded that condemned rickety boat.
If Neri ever knew...
Sighing heavily, I listened to her crying in her sleeping bag and couldn’t stomach the distance between us.
It was agonising and wide, and in the dark where no one could see, I broke my own rules as Neri gave me her back and her soft sob ripped out the rest of my already mangled heart.
I shouldn’t do this.
If Jack found me hugging his daughter like this, he’d most likely punch me.
But nothing could have stopped me from pulling her against me, tucking her head beneath my chin, and letting her break in my arms. “I’m sorry, Nerida. More than you’ll ever know.”
She didn’t reply.
She stayed stiff in my embrace.
But I couldn’t give her anything more.
I couldn’t fall for her because I had nothing to offer her.
But at least I could give her a tiny shred of my true feelings before I locked them away, hiding them from tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
*
Nerida
*
(Sea in Indonesian: Laut)
“THAT MUST HAVE BEEN SO HARD, to give all your truth to the boy you were in love with, only for him to refuse you.”
I blinked.
For a moment, I forgot where I was. Who was the girl in front of me? How did she know about that heart-wrenching night on the beach in Daintree?
But then, Dylan cleared his throat, and Margot shifted in her chair, waiting for me to answer her, and everything came flooding back.
