I’m just numb.
So with whatever strength I have left, I place my hands on his shoulders and push myself off his lap. He tries to hold on, his fingers tightening around my wrists, but I gently untangle myself, one finger at a time.
I stand up. Barely. While Kirill falls to his knees in front of me, broken, his hands half-reaching, half-falling. His face is wet, eyes red, chest heaving like the air is a commodity he’s not permitted to have anymore.
“Stella…”
Just my name.
A prayer.
A plea.
A wound.
I look down at him, and I whisper the only truth I can force out. “It’s too late.” My voice barely exists. “It’s done now.”
And then I turn away.
I walk back into the hospital on legs that feel like they might give out any second. The lobby doors slide open and there’s my mother, waiting exactly where she promised. The moment I cross the threshold, my knees buckle, crashing to the floor. My tears fall freely now, soaking into the cold tile.
My mother kneels beside me, pulling me into her arms, but I barely feel it.
Because the words I speak next fall like a broken whisper, meant for a man who will never hear them.
“I love you too.”
Chapter 24
Stella
I stare into oblivion, twirling the daggers in my hands, the blades cutting the air with every restless flick of my wrist. I should be practicing, training, putting in some kind of sweat, but instead I’m just staring at the dark outline of a figure, its black-hole emptiness far too similar to mine.
“Are you going to throw those things eventually or are you just going to stand there watching the day go by?” my dad, Dom, asks as he walks into the barn, alerting me that I’m no longer alone.
“I was just taking a breather,” I say on autopilot, my eyes still fixed on the black silhouette a few feet away from me.
“A breather, huh?” he says, pulling up a Pilates ball and sitting on it, bouncing a little as he tries to find his balance.
Before, I would have laughed at such a ridiculous image.
But not now.
Now I don’t laugh. I don’t think I’ve even cracked a smile in months.
“Is this nerves?” my father probes in his usual calm way.
“You mean about graduating tomorrow? No. It’s not nerves.” I shake my head.
“I was referring to your induction.”
“Oh.” I mumble. “I forgot about that.”
“You forgot?” He arches a blond brow and gets back on his feet. “Now I know I should be worried.”
I don’t even have it in me to tell him not to be. That I’m fine. That I’m hunky-fucking-dory. Because the truth is, I’m not. I haven’t been fine since the day I broke Kirill’s heart.
Since the day I broke mine too.
