“What the fuck are you doing here, Cookie?” he asks, pulling my head back, his hands gripping my cheeks as he places kisses all over my face. “This isn’t part of the plan.”
“The plans changed.” My voice is quiet, but it may as well be a gunshot. I pull back and hold his hands in mine, clinging to the warmth, the familiarity of him, just for a second longer. “You know I love you, right? And you coming back into my life has been the best thing that has ever happened but—.”
His frown deepens, and I see the exact moment realisation crashes over him like a wave. His body stiffens, his hand rips away from mine like I’ve burnt him.
“So what, then?” His voice is raw, splintered with anger, with hurt. “We get this far, and you just walk away?”
“I’m not walking away.”
“You fucking are, Kara.”
I flinch. Kara, spat like a curse, like something dirty. It slices through me a fresh wound on top of the ones he’s helped me heal. I know why he’s angry. I’m angry, I’m hurt, I’m breaking apart as I stand here. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t be doing this. But we don’t live in a perfect world. This has to happen this way. There are no more what ifs.
There is just this. This path. This decision. I’ve known it for days, deep, deep, down. Brewing like a storm inside me. And if he’d stop and think, he’d know there is no other way, too.
“Think about it,” I say, my voice quiet and steady. No anger. Just resignation. “Let the pragmatic part of your brain take over for a minute.”
He turns his back to me, fists clenched, shoulders shaking with the weight of this moment. His head bows, his body taut with tension.
When he finally turns to face me, his expression shatters me.
He knows.
“This isn’t fair.” His voice cracks, thick with emotion. “I just got you back. There has to be a way.” He moves toward me, instinctively reaching—
I lift my hand.Stop.
Because if he touches me, I won’t be able to do this. If I feel his hands on my skin, if I let him kiss me, I’ll break.
“You know there isn’t.” The words taste like poison, bitter and final. His eyes shine with unshed tears, mine fall freely. “You are everything to me Owen. You will always be. But you know I can’t stay. Not with what comes next. They’ll use Kara against you, they’ll find out who I am, then this—us—will all be for nothing.”
I smile at him sadly, the ache in my chest threatening to pull me under in the pain.
“I love you, Cookie.” He reaches out, his pinkie extended, and I wrap my pinkie around his. A final connection, a final goodbye.
“I love you, too, Owen. Always have, always will.”
He squeezes, just once, and my gaze drops to our tangled fingers. I force a smile, even as my heart fractures beyond repair. “I regret so many things in my life,” I whisper. “But I regret nothing about you.”
“There is nothing insignificant about us.”
“There never will be. Now be the change, Owen. Make this mean something.”
“I will.”
One last squeeze.
One last look at the man who owns my past, my present, my future.
And—I walk away.
Tears blur my vision. My breath comes in shattered gasps. My heart? The thing splits clean in two. I don’t know how I’ll move past this. I don’t know how I’ll ever breathe without an ache in my chest.
But I will.
Because I have to.
Because that’s what I’m trained to do.
