Chapter 25
25
In the space between where I knelt frozen in place on his carpet to where Freddie slept peacefully in his bed, the universe expanded, stretched, pushing itself outward until it might as well have been a light-year separating us. He hadn’t been thinking about me. He hadn’t been talking about me. He didn’t love me.
He’d asked me once if I’d had someone else, but I’d never thought to ask him the same thing. And since that day, all I’d done was push him away, keeping him firmly at arm’s length, forcing him to pretend to be someone else entirely just to get close to me. Who did that? What kind of being did that to someone they claimed to care about?
Of course he’d found another lover. Or maybe he’d had one all along. We weren’t exclusive. We weren’t in love with each other. We weren’t even real. None of this was real. How could I have been so stupid?
My eyes stung and my nose burned. The sensation was so foreign to me—the prickling pain, the mist clouding my vision—that I didn’t recognize it at first. But when I wiped the single tear slipping down my cheek away, something worse than pain slammed into me, worse than disappointment or misery or even heartbreak. It was disgust. Staring at the wetness on my fingers, I was disgusted with myself.
Because I didn’t cry. I’d wanted to, desperately, but I never did. Not once in the last five years. When Jonathan was taken from me, when I’d gotten the call that he was gone, at his service, I hadn’t been able to shed a single tear for him. There were so many nights I didn’t sleep, sitting up in my bed, trying to make the tears come, knowing that if they did, maybe I’d feel less guilty, less numb, less empty. But they never came. Never. And now, this was how it happened? This was what I cried over? Not my son, but a man?
Fury ignited inside me, sudden and tremendous. It wasn’t Freddie or my son or even the cold, uncaring universe that had taken him from me that made my hands clench into fists, made my fists press into my eyes. It was me. I was the one who’d let myself believe I could move on, make a new life, be happy again. I was the one who’d let myself get so vulnerable. I was the one who’d let this thing between us go too far. I was the one who’d forgotten the truth. The truth that Chan knew. That any being who’d suffered so much loss knew. There was no moving on.
I had to get out of here. I couldn’t do this anymore, stare at his sleepy smile, his arms holding his pillow close, his heart full of love for someone who wasn’t me.
Pushing myself to my feet, I staggered to his door and stumbled numbly back to my pod. Once I was safely inside, I stripped down and contemplated throwing my little black dress into the flash incinerator because it was obviously cursed. Then I stood under a shower so scalding my skin was red and tender when I emerged twenty minutes later, still not feeling clean.
I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I knew I was in shock. I knew that even though I was numb now, the pain would find me in the morning. So I sat cross-legged in the middle of my bed, flipped on my TV, and stared at the screen until my eyes burned.
Sunny, what happened to me last night? I don’t remember anything.
Even though my alarm had trilled through my VC twenty minutes ago, I hadn’t moved from my spot in the middle of my bed. I’d been waiting for him, knowing he’d comm me when he woke up. But I still wasn’t prepared for the way his voice grabbed the jagged pieces of my shattered heart and squeezed until they pierced one another.
Bliss is what happened. This came out harsher than I’d intended. I’d been aiming for nonchalant but landed on and you told me that you loved another woman in your sleep by accident. Our drinks were spiked.
Spiked? Christ . Are you okay?
I’m fine. I didn’t drink mine.
After a moment, he said, You sound upset. Did something happen? Did I do something? Was I embarrassing?
My jaw clenched. Nothing happened. You were fine. I swallowed down the lump rising viciously up my throat. You had fun.
Sunny, he said, suddenly deadly serious. Something’s wrong. Talk to me.
My heart battered my ribs until they felt bruised, my mouth going dry, my fingers tingling, panic surging inside my chest. Who is Serena?
Serena? Shock snapped through his voice, but there was a darkness in it too. Something I’d never heard from him before. I thought it was anger. How do you know about Serena?
Stars , I shouldn’t have asked. Because it didn’t matter who Serena was. Because there was no conceivable reality in which I’d be able to sit and listen while he told me about this other being he had feelings for. I couldn’t hear it. Refused to hear it. He couldn’t tell me how he loved someone else. Because I was in love with him.
Somehow, despite our deal, despite how careful I’d tried to be, despite everything, I’d fallen in love with him. Not like. Not infatuation—even though, if I was being honest, there was a bit of that too. But love. Foolish, terrible, inevitable love. I already knew it was, but I couldn’t hear it from him that my love was a mistake.
Never mind, I commed. It doesn’t matter. Listen, Freddie?—
He responded quickly with Sunny, wait. Let me explain, and a fresh wave of pain rolled over me at the desperation in the words.
No. It’s too late. Grinding the heel of my palm into my sternum, trying to make it hurt as much on the outside as it did beneath my ribs, I said, Last night, I realized that this is all moving a bit too fast for me.
There was only silence on his end of the comm.
It’s not your fault, I said. It’s not anyone’s fault. I just need some time. Some space. I need things to slow down.
When he uttered a single, agonized Why? another tear slipped down my cheek.
Things have gotten carried away between us, I managed, somehow keeping my voice steady while I swiped the tear away. And we— I —need a break.
Please, Sunny. His voice broke. Don’t do this. Give me a chance. I love y?—
I clicked off the comm, my eyes drying, my shoulders sinking, my chest cold and empty and caving in on itself. It was awful. Everything hurt. But it was done.