My face contorts under the weight of every emotion ripping through me. My muscles seize and dig into themselves while I fight the softness he offers. The fire rises inside me, pushing bile up my throat. Dizziness blooms around the edges of my mind, making everything tilt and blur.
I feel so overwhelmed, I want to vomit. I want to pass out. I want my brain to shut off. Just for a moment.
Just enough to stop thinking.
Stop feeling.
Stop hurting.
Because the thoughts are too loud. They crash against my skull, cracking it from the inside. My body gives out under the noise, and I collapse—not because I want to, but because I can’t hold myself up anymore.
He doesn’t let me fall.
His arms grip my shoulders, and he holds me as we sink to our knees together. Lava storms through my insides as I squeeze my eyes shut, my breath hitching as his soft, gentle whispers flood into my ear.
He wants his words to imprint themselves on me. He wants his promises to stain my bones.
But I don’t want any of it. He lied to me. Stabbed through every fragile truth I believed in.
How am I supposed to know he won’t do it again?
My throat cinches tight, and hysteria devours me whole as we topple onto our sides. Our bones slam against the wood, but the shock barely registers. The thoughts are louder. They chew through me, a relentless, high-frequency buzz that won’t stop.
It just won’t stop.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his arms locking around me with a crushing desperation. We collapse together, two shattered stones tumbling down the same cliff, unable to stand unless the other holds on. “I’m sorry, baby,I’m so fucking sorry.”
My hands claw at his shirt, twisting the fabric until it wrinkles under my fists. Our tears blend, our sweat merges, our breaths overlap—two beings unraveling into a heap of pain and ruin.
“Stop talking,” I murmur against his shoulder, my voice smothered.
He only pulls me closer.
What doesn’t he fucking understand? I don’t want his apologies. I don’t want his warmth. I don’t want the comfortthat keeps sneaking into my bones, making me hate myself more with every second I don’t pull away.
I don’t need him.
I don’t need anyone.
I lived before him. I can live after him.
My shaking hands drift down, fumbling for distance, pushing against anything that might free me. One palm lands on my thigh, and then, my breath stutters. My fingers slide across something cold, something familiar.
A shard of clarity cuts through the fog.
My knife. I forgot. In all this mess, all this choking hysteria—I forgot I had a fucking knife strapped to my thigh.
A dry, humorless laugh escapes me, and Dante lifts his head from my neck. His eyes meet mine, but the warmth I always saw before is gone.
Hope floods me in a hot, metallic rush. It shatters the paralysis clinging to my muscles. My fingers curl around the knife’s cool handle, and with one clean motion, I rip it free. In a flash of movement, I drive it into his gut.
His eyes widen, the darkness within them swallowing the flicker of shock before it sharpens into something more dangerous.
Betrayal.
And something else—a ghost of an emotion I don’t care enough to decode. He tries to speak, but I don’t let him, shoving the blade deeper. It cuts through his flesh like silk, and the surge of power that follows is intoxicating.
His hand finds mine, fingers trembling as they clutch weakly around my own. “Don’t pull it out,” he whispers, his breath ragged.
