“Yes.”
“And you leave in two weeks.”
His throat bobbed. “Yes.”
The numbness didn’t last long, fury returning to wash it away. “When exactly were you going to tell me this?”
“Soon,” Dominic said desperately. “I swear, Shadow, I was. I promise. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Oh god, this was it, wasn’t it? Weren’t you supposed to see the end coming? There were meant to be signs, weren’t there?
There hadn’t been any for us. Or if there had, I hadn’t seen them.
Or maybe I had. Maybe I’d been so caught up in Dominic that I’d ignored every red flag we’d raced past.
Because this was the end. I knew it in my bones.
“How can you say that?” I said slowly. “How can you stand there and promise me that?”
“What?” Dominic frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You lied to me,” I whispered. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time.”
“It wasn’t really a lie. I just…hadn’t got round to telling you yet.”
I stepped back until his hands fell away. How did his touch, which once felt like home, suddenly feel so foreign? “So those plans we made for when I go off to uni, those weren’t lies? Because agreeing to something you know you won’t be able to do feels like a lie to me.”
“But we can do those things,” Dominic said desperately. “They weren’t lies because we don’t have to break up. We can do long-distance, Ry, just like we planned.”
I laughed bitterly. “There was me thinking long-distance would mean hundreds of miles apart, when it’s actually going to be thousands.”
“I don’t care how far it is. I don’t give a shit if there’s a million fucking miles between us, Shadow. You’ll still be mine.”
His.What a joke. “Kind of hard to follow through on those plans when you don’t even know where in the world you’ll be. Max has already told me you won’t be granted leave for the first few months. Guess you were taking some liberties when you were arranging all those meet-ups in the Autumn.”
Thunder crossed Dominic’s face. “Max needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.”
I gave a disbelieving laugh. “You mean he needs to learn how to be a better liar, like you?”
“I wasn’t lying!” Dominic’s voice rose to a shout. “For fuck’s sake, Shadow. I was going to tell you, I swear. I just never found the right moment.”
My toes brushed his as I got in his face. “Never the right moment? Don’t give me that bullshit. You’ve been in my bed formonths,Dom. We’ve spent endless fucking hours together. You’re many things, but I didn’t realise you were a coward.”
His hand went to my throat, and he caressed the skin with his thumb. “Was I being a coward for not wanting to ruin things? For not wanting you to look at me like you are right now? For wanting to make the most of the little time we had before I went away?”
I pushed his hand off. “That’s the thing, Dom. You knew we were on borrowed time, but I didn’t. I didn’t, because youdidn’t tell me.”
Pain flickered across his face as he reached out to grab me again. I stepped out of his reach, shooting him a warning look. “Don’t.”
Rain began to fall all around us, but I barely noticed it. I was too busy tracking Dominic’s hand. How his trembling fingers curled into a fist. How he lowered it to his side, holding it tightly against his body.
Despite everything, I wanted to go to him. To smooth his hand out and lace his fingers with mine. To kiss the frown lines from his forehead.
But I couldn’t. That wasn’t what we were now.
We would never be that again.
Fuck.How was I still standing? Why wasn’t this over?
