The split second when I was about to surface from my very last cliff jump and instead felt the worst physical pain I could imagine when Tate landed on me and my body literally snapped in half, my spinal cord shredding apart like a stick of string cheese, is one of them.
Seeing Eryn’s face as I hold Lili in my lap, so close to kissing her that we’re sharing the same breath, is another.
I think I’d rather break my back again.
The color drains from Eryn’s face in an instant as Lili jumps up, but her expression takes longer to process what she’s seeing. It lingers blank and stunned on her face like a casualty of a relationship that’s dying before her eyes. And when it finally crumbles, it’s like that small movement took all the energy she had, leaving her locked in place with her white-knuckled hand on the door.
“Eryn.” I say her name, a broken, scraping sound. There areno other words, not when I can still feel the heat of Lili’s body pressed against mine. But that one word is enough to shock her back into life. And when she turns from me and literally starts running, I curse my broken back all over again because I can’t chase after her.
It’s quiet until the door slowly clicks shut, and for long moments after. I can’t look in Lili’s direction, and I know without checking that she isn’t looking at me either. The last thing we want to see is each other.
Finally, her tear-thick words break the silence. “I’m so sorry. Oh, Wren, I’m so sorry.”
I close my eyes to block her out. I can’t hear her apology now, when the screaming voice in my head is accusing me of being exactly like the person I’ve always despised most.
“This is all my fault. You tried to leave me alone and I came right after you. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her everything and she’ll understand that it wasn’t your fault and that I’m, I’m—” Her words just stop because she can’t even convince herself at this point. Yes, she came back, but if she hadn’t, there’s a big part of me that knows I’d have gone after her.
And I’m the one who told her to come to me. I knew exactly what I was doing as I watched her walk around the table; I’d imagined it enough times. I wanted her for so long that in that moment, I didn’t think about anything else. And when she got close enough to reach, I took her.
My hands flex out at my sides, trying to release the memory of her skin sliding against mine. I shut my eyes again as I’m hurtled between one achingly perfect moment and the clawing agony of the one that followed, desire and dread, happiness and horror. Andbeneath it all, the beating truth that trickles like poison down my throat.
Regret that Eryn didn’t come through that door even five seconds later. Because my resolve had been hanging on by a thread.
Because then at least I’d have had that one perfect moment before this hell dragged me under.
And Lili is still talking like anything we might say right now could fix this. “Please,” she’s saying in a broken whisper. “Please tell me what to do.”
As though I have an answer, as though hers is the real offense here when we both know that for those eternal seconds before she ran, Eryn never took her eyes off me.
“Wren,” she says again when I don’t answer her. Then again, finally moving in front of me so I have no choice but to see and hear her. “Wren?”
I stare at her face, tear stained when before it had been sweetly flushed. “Just go, Lili.”
And mercifully, she does.
My solitude is short-lived though. Not five minutes later, Tate pushes through the door. He’s not holding a bag of pretzels or gnawing at a piece of jerky; he’s not even chewing gum so far as I can tell. He’s not cracking a smile either.
He stares at me, and I stare back.
“You don’t have to say it.”
He raises his eyebrows but not his voice. “Wren, tell me I didn’t see what I think I just saw.”
I can’t answer him.
Tate takes half a step forward, then stops as though he doesn’t want to come closer. “Tell me you didn’t.” That’s all he needs to say.He’s my best friend, so he probably saw this—Lili—coming before I did. He even tried to warn me.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
For a split second I think Tate is going to take a swing at me. But it’s only words he lets fly.
“You didn’t mean it? You didn’t mean it! Then you don’t do it! You think about other people and you don’t hurt them.” He whirls away from me only to turn back so quickly it’s like a dance spin. “How could you do that? I mean how could you let it get to that point?”
I don’t know. I only know I did and now I’ve ruined everything.
His lip curls back and I can see him fighting the uncharacteristic urge for physical violence.
“I don’t know what to say to you right now except you’re an asshole for what you did to Eryn. And for what you did to Lili too.”
