Chapter 43
Eric
Voices from the living area drift through the thin walls. Tai’s soft-spoken calm weaves with Theo’s occasional gentle encouragement, and they blend into a quiet rhythm that should feel like home but only makes my isolation sharper.
It’s Dmitri’s voice that cuts deepest. It's broken, splitting me open like a fault line running straight through my chest.
My trembling hands lift to my temples, rubbing slow circles against the pounding headache that’s settled in like it owns the place. Everything pinballs through my skull—guilt, shame, fear—but one truth sits heaviest.
This hurts.
Every word he said to me in that hallway has sunk bone-deep and carved itself into the ivory beneath my skin.
And now the realization that they’re no longer ours, that they were broadcast, stolen, and laid bare for strangers to pick apart…
it takes that pain and mixes it with anger and regret until I can barely breathe.
I’m not mad at Dmitri. Even in my current state, I recognize that he didn’t chase me down to hurt me. He came after me because he couldn’t stand watching me drown in my own head. Nothing about it was intentional. Not like my distance.
Hearing the raw crack in his voice now, and knowing how much I’m tearing him apart is killing me. This hurt is different. It's a thousand tiny fractures through my heart and enough splinters across my soul to leave it ruined. It takes up so much space that there isn't room for anything else.
No anger, no fight, just the hollow ache of what I’ve done.
I know I need to pull my head out of my ass.
I know I can’t lose him.
I know I want to move, to do something.
But I also know I can't right now.
My mind and heart are at war, one screams at me to go to him while the other whispers to stay hidden, to keep the distance safe no matter how much it kills me. To let him live a life without someone who keeps breaking him.
I don’t know how much more I can take.
The engine quiets and the bus stills. Silence falls, heavy and complete except for the distant murmur of the others and the frantic hammer of my heart against ribs.
Soft footsteps approach, slow and careful. I sense him behind the curtain, his presence pressing in without a sound.
A gentle touch traces down my back, so faint I'm not convinced it was ever there.
A whisper-soft sob.
Then he’s gone.
I can’t find words to call him back. My mouth opens in a silent scream, and I curl in on myself, knees drawing into my chest as tremors shake my body. My fists slam into the mattress, over and over and fucking over, until my arms tremble and burn. When my air runs out, I drag in a ragged breath.
There should be nothing left inside me—no oxygen, no tears. But my body keeps finding more, spilling out when I want only to melt into this mattress and vanish. The phantom warmth of his hands lingers across my skin, reminding me of everything I’ll lose if I stay hidden.
I cry until nothing’s left.
Until every sob is gone, and I’m nothing but a husk curled in the dark.
And in that hollowed space, once the storm burns out, the steel cage of my body has room. Breathing steadies into an even rise and fall, and my truth remains.
I don’t want to live without him.
Tonight's chaos wasn't part of the plan, but there's no going back to change it now. It's done, and it's out there. I'm out there. The ridiculous game I've been forcing the others to play with me is over, even if it feels like there are no winners.
I can face this miserable and alone, or I face it with the man I love. Either way, I have to face it.
I swipe the tears from my face and pry my swollen eyes open as I push myself to sit up. Hours have passed, and it's long beyond the middle of the night, but none of that matters right now.
Enough’s enough, and I don’t want to spend another second apart.
My palm presses into the mattress as I scoot toward the edge, and a piece of paper crinkles underneath me.
Moonlight streams through the window, and I hold the envelope in the beam, watching it catch the light.
It’s half-crushed from where I was laying on it, and my name is written across the center in neat, heavy script.
A cold sense of foreboding surrounds it, though I can’t explain why.
My finger follows the sealed edge as I tear it open and lift the paper close. My eyes race over the words, and the storm I thought had finally quieted inside me surges back twice as strong, twisting and coiling as I take it in.
The prickling behind my eyes builds with every line until I have to pause and let tears fall so I can continue. Denial rushes through me, and I start again from the beginning, desperate to prove this is wrong. That this is a mistake. That it's anything but real.
The letters blur into smears, but I keep reading them over and over.
When the tears spill too fast to see past them, a single gasping sob propels me forward.
My feet hit the floor. I bolt toward the house, tripping on the steps in panic, heart hammering so hard it feels like it will burst. I grab the rail to steady myself, then run up the concrete path.
The front door groans loudly as I shove through and take the stairs two at a time.
Dmitri sits on the edge of the bed as I burst in without knocking. He looks more exhausted than I’ve ever seen him—ragged, worn thin, with weariness etched into every line. His head snaps up, his eyes finding mine instantly.
Whatever war is waging in his mind vanishes the second he registers my fear, and he stands and rushes toward me. “Eric, baby, what’s—”
I thrust the paper at his chest. “What is this, Dmitri? What the fuck is this?”