52. Eurydice
Eurydice
Rafe
The elevator doors close before I can move. For a few seconds, I just stand there, breathing like I’ve been hit. Then my head falls forward, hitting the wall with a dull thud.
“Fuck.” The word comes out rough, barely a whisper. I press my palms to the cool metal, trying to slow my breathing, but my heart’s having none of it. It’s hammering, frantic, a drumbeat I can’t stop.
She said it. She actually said it.
“I love you, Rafe.”
The words keep replaying in my head, over and over, until it almost hurts to think.
I let out a short, strangled laugh, more disbelief than anything, then punch the wall beside me.
Not hard enough to break it, just enough to feel something, to cut through the mess inside.
A maid rounds the corner, eyes wide, just in time to see me leaning there like a man about to come apart.
I shove my sunglasses on before she can look too long, the automatic mask I’ve been wearing half my life.
I press the button again. My hand’s still shaking.
“Fuck. Fuck.”
How could I fuck that up so royally? She caught me off guard.
Completely. She said what I’ve been feeling since the second she came into my life, since I stared into those eyes, all black liner and glitter dancing across her cheeks, and realized I’d never wanted someone more.
It was mad, I knew that, but I’ve been sitting on it for months, holding it in my mouth, trying not to scare her, trying to go slow for once in my damn life.
She beat me to it. I thought maybe one day, years from now, when she trusted me, when I’d proven I wouldn’t vanish, maybe then we’d get there.
She always looks like she’s evaluating every variable, considering, cautious.
I never thought she’d just hand it to me.
Freely, like she felt everything at once the way I do.
God, I’ve wanted to say it so many times I can taste it.
I wanted to shout it, sing it, burn it into every lyric I’ve ever written.
But when she said it, the way she looked at me, it floored me.
I couldn’t breathe. Because the second I said it back, I wasn’t leaving that room. Not today. Maybe not ever.
The doors open again, and I step inside, trying to breathe, trying to get my head straight, but my reflection in the stainless steel catches me, drawn and useless.
“What the fuck did you just do, Ashton?” I whisper.
I can’t even fix it now. Anything I say will sound like a patch, like I’m trying to cover the wound instead of bleeding with her. Like damage control, false. She handed me her heart, and I stared at it like it was written in a foreign language. The one thing I’ve wanted since the start.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I want to crumble, but I can’t.
I don’t have the luxury of breaking down.
As Stefan likes to remind me, tours create jobs, paychecks for the crew, the band, the label.
I can’t do what I feel like doing. So I try to shove it down, make it manageable, when everything in me wants the opposite.
To tell them all to go to hell, to scoop her up, take her back to our room and whisper I love you against every inch of her until she believes me, until she’s sick of hearing it.
When the doors open again, she’s there at the end of the corridor.
Arms crossed, eyes red-rimmed, face turned away.
She’s not crying anymore, but it’s close.
It flips my stomach like being dropped from a great height, nausea hits me in waves.
This is how I’m leaving her? Two months before I can explain a damn thing.
Two months before I can even try to fix what I just broke.
She feels me watching but won’t look up. I toss the cold coffee in the bin, and drag my suitcase, even the sound of the wheels feels jarring now. When I finally reach her, she’s leaning against the pillar, pretending to look at the doors like I don’t exist. She looks so composed it kills me.
I open my mouth, I want to say something meaningful, anything to help this. But all that comes out is, “Ready to head out?”
She looks at me, eyes hollow from holding too much back, and nods. I nod back, helpless, the weight of everything unsaid pressing down between us. She trails behind me just like Eurydice but I don’t look back.
Because if I do, I’m not walking out of here.
The drive to the airport passes in a blur.
We don’t talk much. She’s staring out the window, arms folded tight across her chest, sunglasses on to hide from me as much as the sun.
I want to reach over, touch her hand, but the air between us feels like cracked glass, one wrong move and it’ll shatter completely.
By the time we reach Departures, my head’s pounding. I grab her suitcase before she can, walking close so she’s shielded, a small buffer from whoever might be watching. She doesn’t look at me, not really, just keeps walking.
Inside, the world feels too intense. Announcements echo off the ceiling, people rush past with their coffees and boarding passes, and all I can think is that none of them have any idea that my whole world is leaving. That I’m supposed to let her walk away.
We stop near the security line. She turns, keeps her chin high, sunglasses still on like armor. “You should go,” she says. “You’ve got your own flight.”
“Kasia—”
“Rafe,” she interrupts, voice too even. “It’s fine. Really. We’ll talk later.”
It hits like a slap. She’s shutting down, walling off. I know that tone, the one she uses when she’s trying to stay upright. I take a step closer, searching for something that’ll make her stay. “This isn't how I want to leave you.”
She exhales, tight and tired. “Well, we don’t have time for anything else.”
She leans in and pecks me, quick, polite, the kind of kiss you give someone you’re already planning to let go.
Soft, but empty. Before she can pull away, I move.
My hand finds hers, gentle but certain, and I steer her off to the side, behind one of the old phone terminals tucked against the wall.
It’s barely private, but it’s enough. I box her in with my arms, shielding her from the open floor, from the eyes and the phones and the world that’s always trying to take pieces of us.
“I'm ok—” she starts, but I’m already there, close enough to feel her breath. I reach up, slide her sunglasses down her nose, then take off mine. Her eyes meet mine, raw, hurt, before they dart to the floor between us.
“Look at me,” I whisper and she does.
“I messed that up,” I say. “Back there. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just—I froze. I’ll make it right.” Her eyes flick up, startled, wet at the corners. I rest my palm against her face, thumb brushing her cheek. “The kind of right we need proper time for. To hold onto it, to prove it.”
Her mouth parts, just slightly. “Rafe…”
I don’t let her finish. I lean in and kiss her.
The kind of kiss that leaves no room for doubt, no space for performance.
My lips against hers are the echo of everything I should’ve said back at the hotel.
She softens instantly, hands gripping the front of my shirt, a muffled sound escaping her throat.
The noise of the airport fades, just a pulse of life moving around us, distant and unimportant.
For a heartbeat, it’s only us, hidden in plain sight.
When I finally pull back there’s still hurt in her eyes, but something else too, something that feels dangerously close to hope. Maybe when I come back, she’ll still feel the same, I hear her say it again in my mind, I love you. I have to believe she still will.
Because I already know, I’m not walking away from this.