Five words is all it takes for my world to stop spinning—for the crumbling foundation beneath my feet to give way to a mudslide of unfulfilled promises. I don’t try to hang on amidst the destruction. I let it sweep over me like it always intended to do.
It was all an act.
How could it have all been an act? The things he said to me in confidence, the way he cradled me when I trusted him with my body, the not-so-inconspicuous glances he’d give me when he thought I wasn’t looking, the late-night dates he’d take me on to cheer me up after a rough day. I don’t believe him.I can’t.
I want to collapse to the ground. I want to bang my fists against sodden earth. I want to scream into the deluge until someone finally hears me. “No, no. What you felt for me—that was real.”
I didn’t know it was possible for the weather to grow any more malignant, but it does. Corporeal whispers hug the shadowed tree lines like the demonic chittering of unseen cryptids, and my hair slashes back and forth in the bone-chilling wind.
My indignation has flushed itself from my body as if it was poison—which, in some poetic way, I guess it was.
The tears surge forward, physically pushing me toward a finish line that I’m not ready to cross. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t leave me.”
Knox can’t offer me any relief besides another rehearsed response. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I try to extend my hand to him—hoping that he’ll take it,hoping that it’ll remind him of all the times he held it—but he steps backwards to evade it.
When my chest heaves, the air in my respiratory system snags on my ribs, as if the bone had broken and healed wrong. I can’t fucking do this.
“You’re breaking my heart,” I sob, hugging my arms around my midsection.
He stiffens. “I have to let you go. Things will be better this way.”
“Nothingwill be better this way. And if you truly think that, then maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. One bump in the road is all it takes for you to run for the hills.”
“Staten…”
My pulse trips against the thin skin of my wrist, and suddenly, I’m transported back to the day Knox Mulligan knocked me on my ass with his car. Through a concussive lens, all I could see were the faint outlines of his features, but I felt his presence before anything—I felt the warmth that he radiated like the first sign of spring after a merciless winter. As much as I hated him in that moment, a part of me knew he wasn’t going to let me die. Ironic now, isn’t it? Me being at the mercy of my killer once again.
Sorrow bloats inside of me, and the lacquered film over my eyes is making it harder to see in the unrelenting shower. The night knows no end. The rain won’t let me rest, nor will it soothe me to sleep with its melodic lullabies. A piece of me will die with Knox tonight, and I don’t think I’ll ever revive it.
One last question—one last question because that’s all I have in me. It’s clear he’s not going to fight for us.
“Did you ever love me?” I ask, my voice small, aware of the space it takes up. There’s upset in my belly, and the question spoils like curdled milk against an irritated stomach lining.
Knox blinks at me before sadness perforates his crackedmask. “Of course I did. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life.”
“Then why didn’t you say it?”
“I didn’t know how.”
I take a step back, only to narrowly lose my footing on a misaligned board. It’s Knox’s turn to outstretch his hand, and my turn to refuse it.
“This isn’t how someone who ‘loves’me would treat me.”
His lips pop open to say something, but even he knows that he’s used up all his defenses.
“I hope you never have to know what this pain feels like,” I scream at him with a bleeding throat, right before turning tail and closing our unfinished chapter.
If I look back, I don’t think I’ll be able to stay away.
29
THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH
STATEN
Knox’s car engine roars to life even amongst the rain, and the thought of him leaving—for good, this time—twists a knife inside me with a poorly disciplined hand.
