I dropped the paper bag with my candles in it, not caring if they broke. I needed my hands for more important things.
I invaded her space with my breath hammering in my chest, tilting her jaw with my knuckles as she gasped. “You’re right, okay? I want you happy, Ariana, I do, but not with him. And I can see right through the lies you tell me. There’s something wrong between you two. There’s something you’re not saying.”
Her eyes darted between mine, wide and almost… hopeful. Like she was relieved someone saw it.
But in the next instant, her face was blank.
“You don’t know me anymore,” she said, swatting my hand away and taking a step back. “You think you do, but you don’t.”
“I know you better than anyone.”
“No.” She backed up another step. “Youknewwho I was. Past tense. You don’t know who I am now. You don’t know my life. My marriage. You don’t know anything!”
“Ari, please.” The word cracked out of me. “Don’t shut me out again.”
She barked a laugh, but it broke in the middle. “Again? Shane, you—”
Her phone buzzed in her hand. She looked down.
Uber arriving: 1 minute.
My chest caved.
“I can take you home,” I said quickly, stepping forward. “You don’t need—”
“It’s fine. I called a car,” she cut in.
“It’s pouring,” I argued desperately. “Let me—”
“Let you what? Take me on another cute little trolley ride back to Ybor where your Jeep is parked? Don’t you think we’ve played pretend enough today?”
The rain drummed harder, echoing off the concrete. Her phone buzzed again, and she looked down at the screen showing her approaching ride.
“Ari,” I tried again, reaching out. “I don’t want today to end like this. Please—”
She jerked back like my touch burned. “This day shouldn’t have begun at all. The whole thing was a mistake.”
That gutted me.
Before I could react, before I could grab the thread slipping between us, she turned and jogged out from under the bridge, straight into the downpour. Her silhouette blurred into the sheets of rain as a car pulled up beside the walkway.
The driver hopped out with an umbrella popping up, holding her door open so she could dive inside.
She didn’t look back.
I stood there beneath the bridge, rainwater dripping from my hair, my chest heaving as I dragged a hand back through it, water slicking down my neck. My jaw locked. My fists curled at my sides, knuckles aching with the effort not to chase after her.
The rain hammered the pavement, loud enough to drown out the city — but not the truth crashing through me.
She wasn’t fine.
She hadn’t been for a long time.
And whatever cracks she tried to hide behind that bright smile… I saw them.
I saw her.
I didn’t know what she was walking back into, or what waited for her behind the door of that house, but I knew the look in hereyes. I’d seen it once before on a girl who had learned too young that safety could be taken from you in an instant.
