As people flood out from the chapel, I watch them, all alone, standing in a beautiful dress on what could have been the happiest day of my life.
Who am I kidding? This was never going to end well. The question was, just what degree of awful would it be?
Level terrible is where it ended up.
I’m left standing alone, shunned, just as I feared.
My magic may have been the reason why people are leaving, but it’s not the reason I’m alone.
I did that to myself, and there’s no way to salvage this.
Chapter 44
Coco
Ron takes me home, and as soon as I step through the door, the scent hits me.
The whole house smells like Stone—salty air, pine soap, the faint aroma of ocean wind tangled with something warm and clean. After I peel off the dress—which I’ll return, of course—I find one of his T-shirts folded at the foot of the bed. I pull it on and crawl into the side he’s been sleeping on, pressing my face to his pillow like it might hold the last breath he left behind.
I blink at the dark ceiling hour after hour until sleep finally drags me under.
I awaken the next morning and stare at my ceiling for a good thirty minutes before finally dragging myself from bed to get cleaned up. My entire body aches from the emotional strain of last night, and of course the whole scene is on replay in my mind.
It’s like I want to live in this agony. No, not live in it. I simply don’t know how to shut it off and move forward.
Maybe I don’t deserve to. Maybe I deserve to be haunted by what I did to Stone.
Soon as I’m out of the shower, there’s a knock at the front door. My body thrums with hope. Maybe it’s Stone and he’s forgiven me.
I open the door, half praying it’s him, half dreading that it is, because the look of contempt he gave me last night mirrored what I knew he’d feel when he discovered the truth.
But it isn’t Stone. It’s Cristina. She stands in the doorway with a to-go cup of coffee. “Hey,” she says gently. “I thought you might need this.”
“More like I could use a bottle of whiskey.”
She grimaces. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
I move aside as she hands me the cup. I’m hit with the scents of cinnamon and vanilla. I take a tentative sip and sigh. This helps. It won’t heal. But it will certainly help.
“How’d you sleep?” she asks, placing her lower back against the kitchen counter.
“Like shit. As you’d expect.”
She nods. “What are you going to do?”
I shrug. “Hide out here all weekend so I don’t have to see anyone. Put a bag over my head if I have to go into town—at least for the first month. Maybe it’ll all blow over by then.”
Cristina gives me a sympathetic look.
I sink onto a chair. “I made a huge mess of it all and he hates me. He always would’ve hated me, though.”
Maybe I wanted him to, because in the end it’ll be easier to release him if he hates me. It’s a clean break.
Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no easy way to let go of the effect Stone Maddox had on me.
I laugh and it’s a fractured sound. “I ruined everything, Cristina.”
