“When have you ever been afraid of death?” Dean counters.
“Since I fell in love with her.”
His teeth snap together, “Shit.”
I huff a laugh though this is hardly amusing.
“What about Sav?” He asks.
Sorrow works through me, eating apart my very soul. A parasite, a disease with no cure. “She doesn’t remember. The night of the accident… I broke it off.”
“Killian,” He starts, eyes wide.
“She left here, in tears, and then she got in a wreck and woke up in the hospital with no memory of it all.”
“Fuck, man,” He breathes out heavily.
“Saved her,” Every single beat of my heart sends pain through my chest, “But killed me.”
It’s how it should be, I know that, and I was stupid to think that maybe, just fucking maybe I could have something. Something good, something that made me fucking happy, but I found that light in the wrong place.
Savannah deserves more than secrets.
My brother remains silent for a moment, “There is still a chance she will remember.”
“And then what?” I question, “She remembers how I broke her heart? How I hurt her?”
“I saw the way you looked at her, Killian,” Dean tries, “I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that.”
“And you never will. She wasitfor me but me? I was never meant to be it for her.”
I physically cannot lift a single weight, my muscles aren’t working, my joints are stiff and screaming for rest, but I try anyway. I have no strength left. Nothing. I’m all out.
The weights thud against the floor and I let my arms dangle off the edges of the bench, spine pressed to the cushion. The dark ceiling stares back at me.
I made Dean vow not to speak a word of what he figured out and as my brother, of course he agreed. Our bond is unbreakable, even within our friendship group and honestly, I’m surprised it took him this long to see it.
Sure, I hid it, but my brother knows everything.
I’ve fought the voice inside my head all day, the one telling me to go to her, I resisted the pull, the thread that binds us together. She is the air, and I am fucking suffocating.
But still, I won’t go. I can’t.
I have to let her go.
Knowing there’s no way I’m releasing any tension with weightlifting tonight, I push up from the bench and head through to the spare room that’s been somewhat converted into an art studio, the canvas I’d started only days before still half painted on the easel. Strokes of paint make up the blonde strands of hair, the background a mix of pinks and purples and mellow reds that mimic the colors of the sunsets she loves so much. But I didn’t complete herface though I’m about to change that.
Grabbing the bottle of whiskey from the shelf and a glass, I pour myself a large serving and head across to the stool, grabbing my palette and take a sip as I get to work to complete it. I don’t know how many I have now, hundreds probably, each one of her, visions of her that haunt my memory.
I’m just adding detail to her eyes when my cell dings in my pocket. Pulling it out, I see it’s the cameras at the front of my house alerting me of company.
Pulling up the live feed, I watch Savannah climb from the cab, handing cash through the open window to the driver before she comes to my gate and pauses at the combination lock. She figured it out once, but would she still think to use it now?
Alert. Wrong code inputted.
The warning pops up as a text on my phone.
Alert. Wrong code inputted.
