“And I love you,” I told her, slow and deliberate, in English because every word was a fight, just how I would fight for her. Saying it in Hungarian was too easy, too obvious. She’d heard it before.
“It doesn’t change how—how…I hate you.”
I could only smile sadly, every syllable raw and heavy, “Coward. Say it in Hungarian.”
Her eyes were so red from tears, and her lashes fluttered as she swallowed and went to speak, but faltered. I stepped forward, taking her face in my hands. “Say it, Fia.”
She couldn’t. The tears in her big, beautiful eyes threatened to fall, her eyes flitting from one of mine to the other. This couldn’t be the last time I would see them. See her. Not full of tears I’d caused — not full of pain.
Her hand trembled as she held my forearm, but didn’t push me away. “You have ruined everything I have worked so hard on. You have used me. Broken me. You don’t get to see me rebuild myself. You don’t get to be a part of the new life I build, Zoltán.”
And I didn’t know if that was worse than her hatred.
I pressed my forehead against hers. “Please, Fia. Please. I just need five minutes of your time. I can explain everything. Please.”
I didn’t even know if I understood everything I’d just been told. But, together, we could. She was rational. Clever. We’d be able to fight this.
She closed her eyes and breathed in and out through pursed lips. I inhaled her, my hands still on her warm, flushed skin, so very alive under my touch, knowing she was slipping from me, and there was nothing I could do.
“I hate you,” she said in our language.
I flinched, and her eyes opened as tears escaped, some clinging to her lashes.
With gentle thumbs, I tried to brush them away, even though I knew the pain cut far deeper.
She deserved better. Sheshouldhate me.
Her soft, delicate fingers pulled my hand off her face, and, swallowing down all my protests, I let my holdslip to her wrist.
She winced, jerked back, and pulled down her fleece. But I saw it. The red marks. “Fia—” my voice was raw and urgent, but she glared at me.
“Zoltán, if you ever cared about me, you’ll let me go.”
I stepped aside, and she darted for the door, her bag hitting her side with her quick steps.
I heard every step until she vanished from all of my senses.
Gone. She was gone.
“Zoltán,” Imre started, but I shook my head at him.
“Scold me later,” I sighed and went to her locker before mine, still hopeful that maybe this was some show for the press and maybe she’d left me a sign.
It was empty. Like she’d never been there at all.
I opened my locker, hauled out my nearly empty bag, and looked inside. I only brought it with me so I could have a locker next to hers and talk to her in front of Imre without raising suspicion. That morning, I’d asked how her love life was going, emphasising the‘love.’
How was it just yesterday she’d told me she loved me?
For every kiss down her stomach in bed, I’d made her repeat it until she gave herself the hiccups with her laughter.
I looked at my phone, deleting all the notifications with one press so they didn’t cover her. I’d changed my background from her throat to one of her smiling with her tomato plant. It only took two swipes to change it back when I was going to be out in public or with her dad.
Now, there was no point in hiding it.
I was going to get her job back. She would have everything she had worked for, and I had taken.
The first thing I needed to do was find my brother.
