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Rico straightens. His eyes remain on mine for a long second before he slowly pulls out and takes a step back. The belt clinks faintly into the dead silence as he pulls his pants back up fully and buckles his belt again.
“This changes nothing,” I say. “We’re still done.”
“Oh, you and I are far from done, Isabella.”
Another shudder ripples down my spine when he says my name. I ignore it.
Making a split-second decision, I reach up and pull the necklace off. My throat closes up and my hand shakes a little, but I have already made this choice so it’s too late to change my mind now.
“Here,” I say, holding out the necklace to him. “Take this and then leave.”
His features soften a fraction.
I steel myself as he reaches towards my open palm. It’s better this way anyway. The necklace would only be a reminder of the life I can never have.
But even though I try to convince myself of that, I know that it’s going to hurt like hell to watch him take that necklace from me.
Because that necklace is the only thing that has ever truly been mine.
All my life, I have never owned anything. My clothes, my weapons, everything, has come from a shared pool of resources that anyone can use. Because owning something is the first step to creating an identity. A real identity. And ghosts do not have those.
So to give away the only thing that has truly been mine and mine alone will break me more than I want to admit.
But it’s not just that.
It’s what the necklace symbolizes. A dream, a hope, that this fragile thing between us could somehow be real.
Panic crackles through my soul becausehealmost made me believe that it could be real. He made me feel things. Made me think, for just one second, that maybe I could have a life. A real life. And it scares the hell out of me because I know that I can’t.
So to have this reminder that Rico knows me well enough to notice me looking at the necklace, and to then buy it for me as a gift, will only be a painful reminder of the delusions that I almost started to believe.
And yet, that sharp ache still slices through my chest as Rico reaches for the necklace.
But he doesn’t take it.
Instead, he places his hand over mine, curling my fingers back around the silver necklace. There is a sad smile on his lips as he pulls his hand back.
“It was a gift. Keep it.”
Then he turns around, picks up his shirt from the floor, and walks out the door.
30
RICO
Astorm of emotions swirls behind my ribs as I stalk through the residential area at the crack of dawn. I can be such a fucking coward sometimes. I went to Isabella’s apartment last night determined to confront her once and for all. But then she tried to break up with me, as if we were some kind of normal couple. And worse, she tried to tell me that none of those stolen moments we have shared these past few weeks have been real.
And I just… lost it.
How could she even suggest that all of it was fake? That it was all pretend? When those moments with her were the most real I have ever felt.
But then I saw that she was wearing the necklace that I gave her, and Iknewthat she was yet again lying to me. So I threw aside my plan to confront her about her real identity and instead focused it all on getting her to admit that at least one part of what we’d had was real.
I went there to confront her about the night my parents were murdered, but instead, I fucked her and then left. Like a bloody coward. Because there were just too many conflicting emotions whirling through me.
There arestilltoo many conflicting emotions whirling through me.
But I can’t afford to feel any of that anymore, so I force myself to block it all out.
