When we finally stop moving, he collapses against me—forehead to my chest, hand still wrapped around the back of myneck like he needs the contact and he says the quietest thing I’ve ever heard from his mouth. “Don’t leave before I come back.”
His voice is soft. Frayed. Like the words cost him. Like they’ve been carved out of somewhere deep inside him he never lets anyone see and they hit me like a fucking gut punch.
I stare at him, this beautiful, broken man lying half on top of me—his lips still sticky from syrup, his fingers still warm on my skin—and I feel like the worst kind of liar. The cruelest kind of coward.
He just asked me for the one thing I can’t give him and I wish I could. I wish I could promise I’ll be here when he gets back, curled up in his bed, wearing his hoodie and annoying him with my coffee orders and sneaking kisses when he’s grumpy in the morning.
“I…” I swallow, my voice barely audible. “Dax…”
He lifts his head, those too-blue eyes locking on mine, something raw and dangerous sparking in their depths like he already knows I’m about to say something he won’t like.
“I can’t promise that.”
The silence between us stretches into something physical, a third presence in the room, while his hand—the one that had just moments ago pressed against my pulse with such certainty—slides away from my throat with the hesitant retreat of a tide pulling back from shore, leaving nothing but cooling skin and the ghost-print of fingers that had promised permanence but delivered only temporary possession, his eyes fixed on some point beyond my shoulder as if whatever had possessed him moments ago had fled, taking with it all the humid heat we'd generated, leaving the air around us thin and suddenly, achingly cold.
“You can’t promise…” he echoes, eyes narrowing just enough that I feel it like a cut.
“I’m not going anywhere yet,” I rush out, sitting up, sticky and aching and panicking, “but I—there’s something I haven’t told you.”
“Clearly.”
“Please don’t do that,” I whisper.
He’s already climbing off me, grabbing his jeans like he needs armour between us now. Like my words just flipped a switch and dragged us back to the very beginning.
“Tell me then,” he says, not looking at me. “Before I decide I don’t want to know.”
I realise I’m still naked. Still trembling. Still covered in syrup and shame but if I lie now—I lose him anyway.
“I got accepted… for medical volunteer work. Overseas. It’s something I applied for years ago when everything was different, and I didn’t think I’d even hear back, but I did. I’m leaving a month after you.”
Silence stretches between us like a tightrope, our breathing suspended in the sticky air, his jaw clenching and unclenching with each second that passes, the muscles in his throat working as he swallows whatever words he might have said, his eyes darting to the door then back to me, fingers curling into fists at his sides before slowly unfurling, shoulders hunched forward as if bracing for impact, and when he finally turns, the light catches the wetness in his eyes, transforming them into fractured glass.
Chapter
Fourteen
Dax
She says it. And it’s like the floor drops out from under me.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
Just—soft.
Too soft for what it means.
Too soft for what it does to me.
She’s leaving.
She’s fucking leaving.
A month after me.
I just stood here, syrup on my fucking fingers, begging her not to leave. Pleading with my eyes like some war-shattered little boy. And the whole time, she already knew. She knew she wasn’t going to be here.
