He looks visibly exhausted, dark spots under his eyes like he hasn’t slept for days. I’ve never seen him this way. As though his entire world has imploded.
My fingers hesitate on the lock, a lump settling in my throat.
I want to see him. I don’t want to see him.
God, I miss him.
Maybe I can just talk to him for a minute. I mean, the man looks like shit. It’s the least I can do. It doesn’t mean I have to forgive him, right?
Clearing my throat, I tug out my hair tie and rake my fingers through my hair, trying to look a little less like I’m falling apart on the inside.
As soon as I open the door, his brows pull in, emotions filling every line on his face. He doesn’t move, and neither do I, even while I so badly want to jump into his arms and stay there.
“Hey,” I manage, thin and brittle.
His jaw clenches, throat working like the words hurt before they even leave him.
“Privet, detka.” Each syllable cracks around the edges.
And just like that, the ache I’ve been fighting all night shoves hard behind my eyes. Because even after everything, he’s still the man I let into my heart, and now I can’t seem to tear him out without bleeding.
I want to reach for him. I want to slam the door. I want a thousand things I can’t have anymore.
“What do you want, Aleksei?”
The question tastes bitter, and he doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes hold mine, so raw it’s as though I’m sinking into them.
“You,” he whispers, so broken it cuts into me.
My chin trembles. Just the sound of that word from his mouth threatens to undo me.
But I can’t let it. I can’t fall into the gravity of him again, not when I’ve barely learned how to stand without him.
“I told you we’re over.” But it’s like I’m trying to convince myself. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Then why…” He steps into the space between us. “Why does it not feel like we are?”
Before I can react, he’s already inside, filling the room. Filling the air I’ve been trying not to breathe. Instinct kicks in and my feet retreat, carrying me backward as he moves forward until the door clicks shut behind him and I’m trapped again—by his orbit, by the power he’s always held over me.
“I can’t breathe without you, Fiona.” His chest works with rough, uneven breaths, like he sprinted to get here. “Do you understand that?”
My tears threaten as I ache to bury my face in his neck and forget everything but the way his arms feel around me. The way his heart used to beat against mine. It hurts to see him so broken, his eyes bloodshot as they beg for my understanding.
It’s like he’s been stripped bare, and all that’s left is his heartbreak.
“I want to be everything you need.” His hand reaches for mine, and I can’t seem to move.
His fingers lace with mine, and something inside my chest stirs, pain and longing tangled together until I don’t even know what I’m feeling anymore.
“I’ve never felt more alive than when I am with you. I have spent my whole entire life avoiding this.” He squeezes my hand. “Avoiding love. Calling it weakness. Saying that needing someone the way I need you made me less somehow.” He draws closer, the heat of his body wafting over mine. “But then I met you. And you… You slit every lie I told myself. You are my destiny, and I destroyed it.”
The tears come without warning, burning a hole through my heart.
“I hurt you.” His words crack. “I betrayed the one person who ever saw me and accepted me anyway. If I could go back, I would. I would rewrite every second and make it right.”
His knees hit the floor before the shock of it hits me.
I inhale sharply, hand still clutched in his. His head lowers, like he doesn’t even deserve to look at me.
