Until Forever Falls (Pain and Promises #1)

Prologue

Brooks

Then

Every step I take away from her feels as though a knife is twisting deeper into my chest, each pounding heartbeat a cruel reminder of what I’m about to lose.

My old Nikes press into the gravel with each step, but I force my eyes to stay fixed ahead, desperately willing myself not to turn around and pull Dylan into my arms.

Time stretches painfully as I approach my truck, each second dragging longer than the last. The parking lot feels endless, mocking me, luring me closer to the moment I’ll have to shatter everything I’ve ever wanted.

Dylan was the dream I never questioned, the forever I never doubted. But everything changed in the span of a few weeks. Now, I have to end it—end us—to protect her.

I can’t pull her into the darkness closing in around me. She’s barely holding on as it is, and this might be the thing that makes her let go. She deserves a life free from pain, without the grief that will now inevitably follow me wherever I go.

She calls my name, and my stomach immediately churns, bile rising as I brace myself for what I’m about to do. My whole world is collapsing, the future I pictured with her falling apart before my eyes. But this isn’t about me—it’s about Dylan. It has to be. She deserves more than I can give her now; she deserves someone who can truly stand by her side, through both the highs and the lows. And it’s the lows that scare me most. I know what’s coming, and I’ll take the hit alone before she has to.

Every part of me aches to be selfish.

I want to hold on to her with everything I have and damn the consequences, but I can’t.

I love her too much for that.

My hands tremble against the truck door, a desperate struggle to remain steady. The urge to turn back, to steal one last kiss, presses hard—almost impossible to resist. But another kiss would only weave another lie, another thread of false hope. Sometimes the greatest act of love is letting go, even when it tears you apart from the inside out.

Even if I have to break her heart to keep it whole.