AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Getthe fuckout of my way, Phoenix,” Tristan snarls, his eyes pinned desperately on me as he tries to get past my friends.
“I told you to leave,” I cry, “I yelled at you to go,over and overagain. I gave you so many chances to walk away from me without any consequences, without hurting me so badly,” I say between ragged sobs, my face covered in tears. I’m never going to get over this, he’s unequivocally shattered every part of me. “And you chose to stay. Youchoseto give me a pretty speech about being here when you really had no plan to be after the year was over. You chose to get me to trust you, to get me to fall in love with you. You built me up just to tear it all away.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s killing me to see you like this, to know that I’m the one who hurt you.”
“Why did you take the time to care for my heart, to heal the parts of me that were broken, if you were just going to turn around and hurt me more than anyone else?” I choke on a sob, my voice ragged like it’s been run over hot coals. “You had to know you’d destroy me with this.”
“Because I never meant to hurt you! All I’ve ever wanted to do is protect you. I love you so fucking much. Tell me what I have to do to make you forgive me.”
“You told me that sometimes the people who love you the most are the ones who hurt you the most. You were wrong. Now I know that if you love someone, you don’t hurt them.” I shake my head, dejectedly. “You don’t love me enough if you could lie formonthsand keep stringing me along with no plan for our future.”
“I’m sick to my stomach at the thought of losing you, don’t tell me I don’t love you enough. I’d give upeverythingfor you.”
“But you didn’t, and that says it all,” she whispers, shaking her head sadly. “This is over, Tristan. Thank you for what you did, you really did save me. Now I need to save myself.”
“I’m not letting you go,” he vows.
“I’m already gone, there’s nothing for you to hold onto. I told you to take care of my heart, that I wouldn’t forgive you if you hurt me like this and I meant it,” I head for my room with the girls in tow, but stop before crossing the threshold. I turn around and drink him in one last time. I’ll be forced to see him in class, but this is the last time I’ll look at him while he’s still mine. He’s disheveled and rumpled, his face twisted in an agonized scowl, his eyes desperately searching mine like he can convince me to stay with the force of his gaze alone. He’s painful to look at and shards of glass bury themselves deeper in my heart the longer I do so. “Our story starts and ends with you lying to me about your name. How fucking poetic.”
He yells my name after me, but I don’t turn around. My bedroom door shuts behind us and still I hear his frantic calls for me.
My knees finally give in and I fall to the ground, but Bellamy catches me before I hit the floor. The three of them hold me silently as I cry, lending their unyielding pillars of strength to me when I need it most.
???
Chapter 43
Tristan
Ispend the length of the flight trying to hold it together. The airplane isn’t strong enough to survive the explosion of anger and fear if I let it erupt out of me.
Nera is right, I should have had a plan. I was so worried about how she’d react to my lies themselves that I never stopped to wonder if my lack of answers about what came next wouldn’t be what would upset her the most.
To be honest, I’d barely thought about it myself.
She was right, on paper there was no future for us. My father was going to make me marry someone from a family he chose. He was going to make me take over the company. On paper, we were going to be nothing more than a short-lived and doomed relationship.
On paper.
In reality, the moment she walked out of her apartment building wearing that microscopic metallic dress for our first date, that paper became obsolete. I took a metaphorical flame thrower to it, incinerating it and whatever plan my father had for me along with it.
That’s when I knew I loved her.
As early as that innocuous day, I knew in my bones that I’d never let her go, that she’d never be anybody else’s but mine.
I didn’t think about a plan because the truth was self-evident to me: there was no me without her anymore, end of.
But I now realize that isn’t enough. That I can’t expect her just to trust my word when it’s been proven to mean nothing. I need to prove to her that I choose her.
That’s the only reason I got on this fucking flight to begin with. I hate being away from her, especially now, but this is how I’m going to get her back.
I burst through the front door of my parents’ home without pausing to acknowledge Clive.
“Sir! We weren’t expecting you today,” I hear him call out to me, but I’m already halfway up the stairs.
When I stride into my father’s office, he’s sitting at his desk opposite what I assume is a business partner of his. His eyes bulge when the door slams against the wall, rattling dangerously on its hinges.
“Tristan, what are you–”
