Instead…
I stand there as the silence grows between us, heavy and dark and rotted through.
Because I can’t fix what I’ve just broken.
She turns to leave.
And I know, with sickening certainty, that she’s taking a piece of me with her.
A piece I willneverget back.
Thirty-Five
Finn
“What do you mean?”
The question sounds stupid even to my own ears.
Not because I don’t understand the words.
But because I understand them perfectly and my brain keeps trying to reject them anyway.
Your replacement.
Your. Replacement.
But I’m supposed to be part of them, part of this family.
Except when I look at Rhodes, he’s just standing there, expression blank, his body looking like it’s been carved out of stone.
“I need you to be here for Chloe,” he says.
I stare at him.
Realize with awful clarity that he doesn’t sayfor us.
Doesn’t sayfor me.
Doesn’t say becauseI want you here.
Just Chloe.
OnlyChloe.
And something in my soul splinters.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Iamhere for Chloe.”
“Except that you’re planning to flit off on a vacation in a couple of months.”
I flinch.
Because he knows—or hethinkshe knows.
And suddenly everything makes sense. The weirdness. The distance. The locked office door. The way he wouldn’t look at me this morning and how he avoided me before the game.
He thinks I’m leaving them.
