Chapter 20 #2
As I followed him down the darkened corridor, I couldn’t help but remember another hall we’d walked six weeks ago, when my heart was breaking irreparably and his footsteps filled mine. That night echoed with betrayals. Now, we bathed in the shadows of their damage.
How life had changed so vastly since then and yet we found ourselves in the same undetermined situation, I didn’t know. All I knew was the pain I’d seen in his eyes, the echo that ripped through my Bind, and the feeling that I was walking into battle without a hint of armor.
The door to our bedchamber clicked shut behind me, locking us and our tempers in.
“Why would you invite him?” Malakai paced in front of the fire, one hand rubbing circles over his chest. I fought the urge to soothe my Bind in the same manner.
“He’s our ally, Malakai.” I leaned against the bedpost, crossing my arms.
“He can’t be trusted,” he spat.
“He’s shown that might not be true.”
Malakai froze, eyes shooting to mine. “Why do you not believe me on this, yet you believe him? Why don’t you trust me?”
And that was the problem we kept facing. The one I had turned my back on again and again. What we’d wrecked so thoroughly, and no matter what way we spun it, how we avoided it, we could not outrun that fact.
We no longer existed on the same page. Spirits, not even in the same realm of understanding. Both too blinded by our own experiences to look at what the other needed. A wall existed that kept us from closing the distance between us.
We no longer trusted each other.
I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to tell him that if anyone had the right to rage over broken trust, it was me. I’d done nothing but trust him with my entire heart and he’d torn it to pieces.
But I didn’t want to have that fight again.
There was a more important truth lurking here.
“Trust doesn’t exist between us.” I took a deep breath, biting my lips against the stinging in my eyes. “Not as it once did.” My voice shrank with every word. “We’re different.”
There was no coming back from those words, but I’d thrown them out into the universe, ropes dangling, stretching for a place to tether that didn’t exist.
Maybe there hadn’t been something to pull us back since the day Malakai turned his back on me over two years ago. When he made that choice, he risked our untainted love. In the years he was gone, we’d both changed.
Grown into different people. Two who didn’t fit together as we once had.
His arms fell to his sides, my words battering him with weighted blows. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we can’t continue to deny it.
I cannot live in this—this—toxic realm of anger.
” Tears broke from the corners of my eyes, falling hot and harsh, laced with vulnerability that stained the carpet between us and broke free this bottled-up truth inside of me.
Rage settled in its absence—at myself for allowing us to get to this point, at Malakai for hiding from me.
Each sparked within my blood. “I’m done.
I have to be done because this isn’t good anymore. ”
“You mean—” His eyes widened, and he swallowed, jaw ticking in time with my words echoing between us. “You’re leaving me.”
“Leaving?” I shrieked, embers of fury igniting. “That’s rich coming from you.”
“You know I didn’t want to leave!” Frustration turned his words into a roar.
“This is what I’m talking about!” I yelled, throwing my arms wide.
“We always return to this fight. The past haunts us like a vengeful ghost, and I am tired of it. We don’t agree on anything anymore.
” Exhaustion weighed down my soul, blurring my mind, and I lost track of my words. “I want to be happy—I want to move on.”
I hadn’t meant to say it, but the moment that confession left my lips, a warmth wrapped around me. Relief.
He took a deep breath, realization seeming to settle in it. “Alone.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know—” The argument died on my tongue because I did know. “I can’t fall back into this avoidant dance with you. We’re being reckless with our hearts, and I’m putting a stop to it.”
The words were stronger than I felt. Malakai was all I’d ever known.
But I dug into that relief, wrapped it around me like a comfort blanket.
Dulled the pain pulsing off of Malakai now that the truth was out.
But that was a coward’s move. If I was going to do this, it was only fair to us both that I was honest. I shucked that blanket, let it pool around my feet and bare the ugly reality.
“I’ve tried to pick up where we left off, but the truth is, we’re different people than we once were.” We’d both been keeping secrets, burying our pain, and I knew myself. I wouldn’t stop doing that, wouldn’t start healing, if we remained.
I wiped tears from my cheeks, their stains a reminder that some things weren’t meant to be fixed. Some endings weren’t meant to be happy.
Malakai swept across the room until he was standing before me, toe to toe. I looked at his shirt. Two buttons were undone, and the third was slipping out of its fastener. I wondered if I should fix it for him. Stretch out and rehook—
A sturdy finger touched my chin, tilting my head up, and I forgot the buttons—remembered I couldn’t fix things anymore.
The silver lining his eyes cracked my heart open further. It blurred the heartache and haunting in those irises, but…there was acceptance there, too.
He wasn’t fighting what I said because—because he knew I was right. He had probably been denying it as long as I had.
Fucking Spirits, I hated this. I hated the constant pain we both lived in.
My lips trembled. “We’re both so broken.”
“I know,” he muttered, his hand sliding to cup my cheek. I leaned into the warmth that was once my solace but had since become my vice. “And we can’t help each other. Not like this.”
I nodded, tears blurring my vision. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I heard the words he didn’t say. It’s mine. A sob slipped out of my lips at the silent acknowledgment of what had started this downward spiral.
And while I appreciated it—it was too late.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” I needed him to know that.
I needed him to know that this was not an act of revenge, not me giving up.
I had fought against this, fought to save us, fought to put together both of our broken pieces.
But as long as I was focused on him, I was only breaking further.
Grinding those shards of my heart into dust.
Malakai swept a thumb across my cheekbone, but he couldn’t catch the tears as quickly as they fell. “Me too.” He leaned forward, pressing his lips to my forehead.
“We’re only hurting each other more,” I whispered against his neck, lips brushing his skin.
“We’re no longer good for each other,” he exhaled into my hair, like now that we opened this door, we had to keep admitting what we’d denied for weeks. A knife sliced directly into my chest, twisting, shredding, incinerating with each truth.
“We’ll never heal together.” What had been broken between us had launched us down different paths, and I’d been too scared to accept that until tonight.
Still, reluctant to let him go, I wrapped a hand around his wrist.
Neither of us moved. Neither spoke. We held on to that moment for a bit longer, allowing the truths we’d spoken to settle.
His other hand slid around my hip to the small of my back, pressing me closer to him.
I placed my palm against his chest. His heart beat a rapid rhythm beneath my fingertips, and I wished I could soothe it.
No, I corrected. You must fix your own heart.
When he pulled back, I looked at him from beneath wet lashes.
For a brief moment, it all passed before my eyes.
Every long night spent tangled in each other’s arms in our clearing, the moon reflecting beside our North Star, each innocent laugh echoing from the first day we became friends to the last one when he walked away from me.
So many beautiful, effortless memories of devotion and tenderness buried within the folds of heartbreak.
But just because something had once been worth fighting for didn’t mean it would be forever.
And just because something ended didn’t mean it was never beautiful.
We’d shared countless smiles and firsts, the purest bond bottled up into a rush, intoxicating and rich, cushioned from the world as we were.
It was for those moments—for the girl I used to be, who fell in love with the strong, kind-hearted boy—that I tilted my face up.
I pressed my lips to his softly.
He hesitated at first.
I thought he’d pull away, but when I pushed up onto my toes, he tangled his hand in my hair, tilting my head back to claim my mouth. His tongue swept across mine with urgency, as if we both knew we only had so much time left together before we had to face reality.
The whimper that slipped up my throat wasn’t passion—it was desperation.
The need to have him one last time. My hands fisted in his shirt as I pulled him toward the bed, fighting that voice in my head that said I shouldn’t do this, that it would only hurt more.
But Malakai and I spoke better with our bodies than our words, and it was through that connection that I needed to say goodbye.
Malakai understood what I needed, moving his hands to my hips, guiding me. His fingers slipped to the side of my dress, but I beat him to it, ripping the seam. Buttons bounced across the floor with dainty echoes so reminiscent of shattering glass, I nearly flinched, a sob catching in my chest.
But the white fabric pooled around my ankles, silencing them.
I kicked it aside, crushing my mouth back to his. My hands reached greedily for his waistband, untucking his shirt, tearing through the buttons.
He lifted me atop the mattress. For a moment we only looked at each other. At our tear-streaked faces and the broken hearts we bore so feverishly.