34. chapter thirty four
chapter thirty four
a collision of stars
I didn’t move until I heard the door to his room close, the soft click echoing through the hallways like a trigger. My breath hitched, and before I could stop myself, I was out of my room, charging down the hallway after him, the resolve building in my chest.
This couldn’t wait. Not anymore. I needed answers. I needed him to be honest with me, even if it hurt.
I stood outside his door for a moment, my hand hovering over the handle, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. I couldn’t keep pretending that this ache inside me wasn’t growing, that the space I’d carved out for him in my mind wasn’t consuming me.
With a sharp breath, I knocked.
And I waited.
I think I went through every stage of grief in the time he told mehe was going home until now, but in truth, my body felt stuck between denial and anger. I felt my blood boil at the same time I felt tears pricking my lash line. My skin grew hot, and at the same time, cold tears wet my cheeks.
I had time to run through all those feelings again whilst waiting forhim to open the door, and when I couldn’t hear anything from behind it, I twisted the handle, walking in without a care.
I found him on his bed, head in his hands, a shrunken version of the boy I’d existed around for weeks. The sight of him like that—so small, so defeated—sent a wave of something sharp and aching through me.
For a moment, I hesitated in the doorway, feeling like I was intruding on something I wasn’t supposed to witness. But then I stepped in, slowly, my heart still pounding, and the floorboards creaked beneath my weight.
He didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge me.
“Tristan,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. My voice cracked, betraying the knot that had been lodged in my throat since dinner.
Still, nothing.
I took another step forward, my pulse quickening, before stopping just shy of his bed. The tension in the room was thick, like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting for someone to speak, to break whatever spell had settled between us.
“When were you gonna tell me?” I asked, hating the way voice cracked.
Slowly, he lifted his head, his eyes dark and distant, shadows castacross his face. That heaviness I felt before was there, clear as day, laying low beneath his skin. His jaw tightened, like he was fighting to keep something in, but then his head rolled back, guilt masking his face as his eyes fell back on me.“Can I explain?”
My heart screamed at me to whisper the word ‘yes’, but the coldanger that held me frozen in place and refused to let me.
So I spat, “I don’t want to know what’s happened, Tristan, I justwant to know why you thought you couldn’t tell me.” The lump in my throat grew. “Why?” I asked, taking a step closer. “Why are you pushing me away?”
He let out a harsh breath, standing up from his bed and rubbing hisface with his hands, and when he finally looked at me again, his eyes were filled with something I couldn’t quite name—fear, maybe, or guilt. Maybe both. “Because I made a promise to you, Gold’s.” His heavy breath hit my face as he moved closer, melting some of that anger. “I promised to keep your firsts safe. I swore it.”
I threw my hands in the air, catching some of the November breezefrom the cracked open windows. “And what does that have to do with—”
“I wasn’t going to let the first time your heart broke be because ofme.” I think I felt my heart crack down the center, as I listened to the cracks in his voice. “And telling you… telling you everything I needed to before you could find out… I knew your heart wouldn’t survive it.”
“You don’t get to decide that.” I shook my head, my eyes stinging asthey searched his. “You don’t know—”
“I’m going back to London,” he blurted, his voice barely above awhisper, as if saying it out loud cost him something. The corners of my eyes stung with tears, the silhouette of Tristan becoming blurry as he stepped forward and tried to reach for me. “I wanted to tell you, Gold’s. Believe me, I did but—”
“But what?” I stepped back, throwing my hands up aimlessly. “Butyou wanted to lead me on, telling me your plans had changed, only for you to blurt out in front of my family, after I’d been so open about how I felt about you that, oh wait, no, you actually are leaving, and all of this was just a waste?”
“No, I promise, it wasn’t like that—”
“Then what was it like?”
Tristan sighed as he looked at me, those brown pools drinking upevery part of me.And I’m pretty sure even the candle flames stopped swaying whenhis mouth fell open.
“I wasn’t going to leave.”
My brows pulled, as a fresh flood of tears drowned my face.“What?”
His glassy eyes met mine. “I never was, if I’m being honest.” Hisshaky sigh rattled through me. “I haven’t been honest about why I’m here, with any of you… but these last few weeks have made me realise that the reason why I’m here, is the very reason I should leave.”
Fingertips tugged at the ends of his hair. “I never belonged here. Iwas naive to even think that being here would magically bring back the person I used to be, but all I’ve done since stepping foot here is lie to the people I care about.” A quiet sob broke free from his mouth. “All I’ve done is lie to the person I’m falling in love with.”
Falling in love with.
The words floated through me and went straight to my heart.
“You…” I choked the word. “You’re…”
“Falling in love with you, Marigold.”
Something I didn’t know what to call trickled down my spine as helet his hands fall back by his side.
I couldn’t breathe. “What do you… what does that mean?”
“I mean that,” His head sprang up. “You deserve someone betterthan me, Gold’s. You deserve someone who doesn’t have to tiptoe around his past just to make sure that part of him doesn’t come to light to wreck everything he’s come to know.” Another breath. “And you deserve to exist in the light.”
I shook my head, a tear slipping down my cheek, finally giving intoevery emotion that was begging to be let free. “All my life, I’ve been told what’s good for me. At every single turn, there’s been someone who thinks they know what’s best for me, who thinks they know what I need to get by in life. And being at Liberty, meeting you and feeling what I feel for you has been the first time I’ve been allowed to decide what’s good for me. And I know, Tristan, that you’re good for me. You and your heart are what I needed.”
He didn’t move as he asked, “And how do you know that?”
One of my shoulders lifted as I looked at him. “Because I’ve alwaystrusted myself, and I’ve always known what was best for me.” I took a step closer. “And you, Tristan Harper, are what is best for me right now.”
I’d stopped crying now, but my heart was still raging, still aching forhim, and the pain I could see on his face, but I couldn’t understand. It still ached for the version of us that nearly made it.
But right now, all we had was this moment. If this was real and hereally was leaving, I was going to treat this as the last time we’d ever be like this. Purely us.
This was our last moment before reality stole us away.
“Kiss me,” I said, earning back his golden stare.
I watched as his head fell back slightly, pain seeping into everycorner of his face as his mouth fell open. “Goldie, I can’t.” His eyes shone down on me. “I can’t let myself fall for you anymore.”
“You’re already falling.”
“And I have to stop.”
“One more won’t hurt—”
“It’ll hurt, Gold’s, knowing that I’ll just have to forget everythingabout you.” I didn’t think before I rested my palm against his jaw. He shuddered under my touch, before placing a hand over mine. “I can’t kiss you again, knowing that I’ll never get to do it again. Knowing I’ll never get to hold you like that again.” His eyes darkened. “Knowing that I can’t promise you just a kiss, Gold’s.”
When I dared one last look into those night sky eyes, all I felt wascontent.
If this was all we had, if this was all we were ever meant to me,then I’d learn to be okay with it. I had to. What other choice did I have?
But I wasn’t going to let go that easily.I wasn’t going to let the boy who’d shown me the standard I should hold my heart to go without finding a way to remember him for the rest of my life.
Even if it was just pretend.
“Then don’t promise me anything.”