I might…stay.
“I don’t,” I say for a third time.
Though this time I pair it with putting distance between us, enough and so quickly that I see it break off a little chunk of that innocence, that sweetness, that essence that is purely Briar.
It shatters as it falls to the ground.
Gone.
Forever.
“You’re supposed to sayI do!” she says again, more forcefully.
I shake my head, commit her ravaged face to memory, know I need to hold that image tightly so I don’t give in, know it’s the only memory of her I deserve to have.
Then I turn away. Turn from the sputtering of the officiant, turn from the shattering beauty of the only person in the world I’ve ever loved.
I move toward Jace and Pascal. They’ve been with me from the beginning.
Long enough to not question anything.
“Brooks,” Jace begins, moving to block my exit.
Fuck.
Or Pascal has, anyway. Jace has always been a stubborn fuck with a proclivity for doing what he thinks is right.
I ignore it, ignore him, and look to my bodyguard. “Pascal,” I say quietly as I flick my eyes in the direction of Briar.
Luckily, he doesn’t argue.
Only nods…just as footsteps echo across the earth, louder than the rain, which is coming down in sheets now, drenching me, the trees, the earth.
Briar.
“Brooks!”
Pascal steps behind me, intercepts Briar before she can touch me.
Because if she touches me, I may lose my resolve.
“Brooks,” Jace says quietly again.
I just look at him.
He sighs, clamps his teeth together, his eyes piercing into me, silently telling me he knows this is a mistake.
But he doesn’t comment further, and when I step around him this time, he lets me go.
“Brooks!” Briar shouts again.
I start walking.
Keepwalking.
Down along the narrow winding trail, following the faint imprint in earthen ground that Briar knows by heart.
Her place.
