Chapter 21
HOW COULD YOU BE SO DUMB?
AMIRA
Ibarely remember the walk back to the cottage.
My heels crunch in the snow. My hands shake. My chest feels as if it’s been cracked open, every breath slicing through the center of me like glass.
By the time I reach the front door, I’m already crying.
The moment I step inside, I break and the sob I’ve been holding in rips from my throat.
I stumble toward the bathroom, yanking off my earrings, my heels, my clutch dropping somewhere along the way.
My hands are trembling too badly to undo the zipper on my dress, so I leave it on.
I turn on the light and my reflection stares back at me. Mascara streaking down my cheeks. Lipstick smeared. Eyes swollen and glassy. The soft curls I spent an hour pinning in place have started to fall.
I look wrecked.
Stupid.
Naive.
And all I can think about is how Henson once whispered that he’d never make me cry bad tears.
“How could you be so dumb?” I whisper to myself, gripping the sink. “How could you let this happen again?”
Another reminder that I am not the one people choose.
The tears start again, hot and unrelenting, racing down my cheeks faster than I can wipe them away.
“I let you in. I let you in.”
That’s what hurts the most.
This wasn’t just some fling.
Now, standing in this dress he never got to unzip, crying in a bathroom that smells like his cologne from the last time he was here, I know the truth I’ve been trying to outrun.
I have fallen for Henson.
And he was never mine to begin with.