AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It all ends now.
“Why did you break up with me, Eden? Why did you do it? The truth.”
She lifts her eyes and they are swimming with sadness.
“Because,” she replies, and her voice is clear, not trembling, speaking like someone who is speaking the truth. Finally, after a long time. “You know why. My… my dad asked me to. He said I wasn’t allowed to date.”
“Yes, that’s what you told me back then. But that can’t be the real reason.”
I knew about her dad all those years ago. She had told me that if he ever found out, he would hate that she was dating. She wasn’t allowed to. I was her secret.
“He found out,” she says quietly, and there is infinite sadness in her voice, so much so that it feels like a weight is pressing down on my chest, crushing me to death. “He found out and he made me break up with you. Then he… He destroyed your life. And the rest… Well, you know what happened after.”
“And you did nothing?” it bursts out of me, but there’s no energy left in me to shout. I sound hollow and spent. “You didn’t even try to…?”
She turns around abruptly, swaying a little. I catch her arm to steady her, and she snatches it away.
“All these years,” she says, her eyes glued to the floor, strands of lose, auburn hair falling down her forehead and cheeks, “I kept thinking about you. I kept apologizing to you over and over in my head, praying to God that you didn’t hate me completely. Every new song of yours that came out, I immediately memorized it as if it was my homework. And all these songs, they all said the same thing: I hurt you and you can’t forget. I hurt you and you hate me. Always, always the same. I looked in your lyrics for a smidgeon of hope, for anything to keep me going. But I didn’t find it. There was nothing but pain and bitterness in them. EvenSaint Hope. That’s the most hopeless one of them all.”
“Eden, look, I never imagined you would…”
But she’s still speaking, she can’t stop.
“I came here hoping against hope, and because I needed this opportunity, but I knew what you had become. That you are no longer the boy I knew, and that this cold monster has taken his place. But this? Today? You ask me these questions and look at me and take my hand, as if there’s hope… When there isn’t. I’ve searched for it for years and years. For this whole week we’ve spent together. There isn’t. So what do you want from me? I never thought even you would be so cruel.”
“I’m not being cruel on purpose,” the words burst out of me desperately, brokenly. “I’m destroyed. Do you think I want to get on the stage every night and fall apart in front of thousands of people? But what else did you expect?”
“I don’t know what I expected,” she murmurs.
She is shutting down again. Her breath is coming in short, frantic gasps.
“I lost everything in the space of a few days. A few hours. I lost… I lost you, Eden.” I rake my fingers through my hair and tug at the curls so hard it hurts. “A man does not recover from losing someone like you. Ever.”
She’s not looking at me. “I lost everything too,” she says quietly. “And don’t quotePersuasionto me. Not now. Not ever.”
She’s falling apart in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do. Every single word that comes out of my mouth is the wrong thing. Every. Single. Word.
“I lost everything too,” she repeats.
“Did you?” I ask her. I think she can feel my eyes burning a hole on her neck.Look at me, dammit. Turn around. Look at me and I promise, everything will be ok.
She doesn’t.
“You know I did,” she says, turning her body so that her shoulder is angled towards me, her hair hiding her face. “You know what I lost.” She takes a shaky breath, and I reach her in two steps, grab her by the arms and pull her to my chest.
My lips are a breath from hers, and oh, finally, she’s looking at me.
Our breaths mingle together, our hearts beating in a frenzied harmony, pressed against each other.
When she first came on Spencer’s stupid boat, I remember thinking that every day was a victory if I didn’t grab her and kiss her. But tonight, I’m losing.
I’m losing big time.
My lips brush hers and her body arches against my chest, as if it’s instinctive, a reaction left over from before. And just like that, without even kissing her, I let her pierce my armor. Instantly, she finds my hearts.
“Don’t do that,” I whisper, teasing her lips with mine. I pry her mouth open, but I don’t do anything more. She lets me do whatever I want. I feel her go weak in my arms, but I don’t kiss her.
I don’t.
