Chapter 31
NATE (SENIOR YEAR, HIGH SCHOOL)
I’m a selfish asshole.
I couldn’t just let her go. I should have just let her go.
That would have been the right thing to do.
The selfless thing to do. Maybe it would have inflicted less pain on us both.
Because now, letting her go feels even more impossible than before.
Deep down I know it wouldn’t have hurt less in the long run.
This is a pain that will gut me every day for the next two years.
It will leave a gaping hole, allowing my heart to bleed out on the floor before me.
Every day I will feel a little less alive, until finally, the blood loss becomes too much.
I’ll either succumb to the darkness, or I’ll kill that motherfucker.
Option two gets Ellie back.
I knew the minute Nathaniel gave me that ultimatum that I would soak in every last second I had with her. Was it unfair? Absolutely. Seeing her bright eyes shine with adoration, knowing I was going to snuff out that light soon…it was killing me.
But I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her every day and not being able to touch her.
I couldn’t pass her in the halls and not be able to walk up behind her, kiss her neck and leave those little goosebumps behind.
I couldn’t imagine seeing her small hand being held by another man as she looked up to give him her beautiful smile. My smile.
As if anyone else could ever be good enough for her. The thought alone has me clenching my fists, ready to take on an invisible threat. She’s mine. As selfish as it may sound, even though I can’t be with her anymore, no one else can have her.
Touch her.
Kiss her.
Love her.
Somehow, I’ll make damn sure of that.
In two years, she’s going to walk out of this school, and I’m going to be outside of those doors waiting for her.
I’ll stand in the distance and watch my girl cross the stage to her freedom, prouder than I’ll have any right to be.
Then I’ll find her in a sea of black capes and tasseled hats, march right up to her, and throw her over my shoulder while her commencement carries on in the background.
I might have to beg her to listen to me, but I don’t care.
I’ll tie her up and force her to listen if I have to.
I’ll tell her the truth about why I had to end things, why I had to leave her.
Once she knows what happened, she’ll have to forgive me.
We will move past this because a love like ours doesn’t just disappear after two years.
We have the kind of love that will survive any obstacle, even if that obstacle is family.
I’m not naive to the fact that what exists between us is rare. That’s why we have to fight for it. All epic love stories have a sacrifice, right? That heart-stopping climax as the drama unfolds, making you believe things can’t possibly work out. But they do. They always work out in the end.
We will too.
So yeah. I’m selfish. Selfish in the way I love her. Selfish in the way I protect her. But she’s mine to love and protect, and I needed to spend all the time with her I could before being forced to say goodbye. Maybe that was cruel, maybe those extra months made her love me just a little harder.
Good.
I want every bit of my love ingrained in the very depths of her soul.
I don’t want her to escape her feelings for me.
I want to plague her dreams until I am the only thing in them.
Every time she tries to let me go, I want her to hear my voice telling her I love her.
I want my words to ring so loudly she can’t hear anything else.
I want my presence to haunt her so that she will be unable to even look at another man.
I know that will make the pain worse. I know that she’ll spend the next two years miserable, but I can’t afford to care about that. I can’t let her move on without me.
Selfish.
Crazy.
No. I’m fucking in love with my soulmate.
Call it what you want, but I need to ensure that I have my home to come back to when the time comes. Because that’s what Ellie is. My home. If I didn’t truly believe that, I wouldn’t put us through this.
I decorated my home with memories so powerful that she’ll never be able to escape them. I needed the extra time with her to do that. At least that’s what I am telling myself.
The truth is…our love is endless. It was going to hurt just as badly two months ago as it will right now.
Nathaniel told me to leave her by the end of the year, so I didn’t waste a single second. I needed those two extra months to hold her; to hear her sweet voice telling me she loves me.
I needed something to hold on to while we are apart.
Not because I think I’d ever be able to move on, but because I won’t have Ellie to fight the demons in my mind.
The ones that whisper their words of surrender.
She’s been my rock, grounding me to this world, helping me fight the urge to give up.
Those contagious thoughts that once contaminated my brain haven’t come back since the night Ellie found me in my bathroom.
She cured the disease that once brought me to my knees.
Her love is my medicine, and I don’t know that I’ll survive without it.
But Nathaniel gave me a deadline, and that deadline has arrived.
Now, we are here, at the end of the year.
I have no idea how I am going to leave her behind.
The thought of hurting her, of making her cry, tears apart the very fabric of my soul.
My heart bleeds at the thought of being responsible for her pain.
Watching her beautiful face crumple when I tell her it’s over.
She won’t believe me.
She’ll know this is Nathaniel’s doing, and she won’t let me let her go. If that happens, she’ll end up in the care of Chris Hansel. I’d hurt her a thousand times over to prevent that fate. I’d give my life to ensure that it doesn’t. Isn’t that what I’m doing? Giving my life?
I had a plan. No connections. No emotions. Get through senior year and get the hell out of here.
Escape.
Yet here I am. Handing over my life to Nathaniel Westin for the girl I love more than anything in this world.
Without her, I don’t even know how to exist anymore.
Somehow, over these last nine months, she has embedded herself so firmly in my life that I can’t even breathe without her.
She’s become the air in my lungs, the beat of my heart.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her.
That includes leaving her.
But I intend to get her back.
Unfortunately, the intensity of our feelings is also the reason she will see the truth behind what I’m doing, making her just as likely to sacrifice herself for me.
I can’t let that happen.
I can’t just leave her. I have to hurt her in a way we can’t come back from. Not until she learns the truth. There is only one way I can think to do that, and the thought makes my stomach clench.
Tonight is prom night. Ellie hasn’t been to a school dance yet, and she’s so excited to show the rest of the school that I’m hers and she’s mine. There are rumors, of course, but we’ve never confirmed it. Not while I’ve been under Nathaniel’s thumb.
That was supposed to change tonight.
It would have.
Ellie will be here at six tonight, dressed in the beautiful satin red dress she fell in love with.
It was out of her price range, so I bought it for her because she deserves to have everything she’s ever wanted.
We were going to go for a romantic dinner and then head to the school.
I had a nice hotel room booked for the night.
It was supposed to be perfect.
I get up from my desk chair and walk over to where my phone is plugged into the wall. Taking a deep breath, I scroll through my contacts, looking for a name I haven’t called in over a year. Not since the last time I fucked her.
Chelsea Smith.
I open our text box, feeling nauseous over what I’m about to type. I put on the mask, the one I wear for everyone but Ellie.
It’s easier this way.
Nate: Hey baby…
She replies almost immediately. Just like I knew she would.
Chelsea: If it isn’t Nathan Westin. Getting tired of playing with your little sophomore?
Nate: Yeah. Skip prom. Come over around five forty-five. Don’t be late.
Chelsea: What will we be doing, Mr. Westin?
Her attempt at flirting pisses me off. I’m not hers to flirt with. I never will be. But she doesn’t know that, so I play along.
Nate: I’ll give you one guess.
Nate: Oh…and wear something sexy.
Nate: Underneath your clothes.
Chelsea: You got it, baby.
That was as easy as I thought it would be. I would feel bad, but she’s using me the same way I’m using her. She thinks she wants me, but she doesn’t even know me. She knows my name though, and everything attached to it.
I set my phone down and bend over, resting my elbows on my knees.
I feel sick.
I feel like I’m going to die.
I don’t want to do this, but the alternative is not an option. I walk over to my window and try to get a lungful of air. I feel like I’m suffocating, and no matter how deeply I breathe in, my lungs deflate instead. I turn from the window and smash my fist into the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
My knuckles are busted, but I don’t feel a thing.
Blood drips down between the creases of my fingers and falls to the floor.
I watch as it hits the plush white carpet, soaking into the fibers and spreading out as it’s absorbed into the strands.
I drop to the ground beside the stained red threads and watch as beads of bright red blood mix with my clear, salty tears.
I lie down beside my mess and cry.
I hear the doorbell ring. She’s right on time, just as expected. I walk down the hallway, toward the staircase, and see Emmy in the hall.
“When Ellie gets here, let her in and send her to my room.”
She barely looks up from her phone.
“Kay.”