“What does that mean? Does…does that mean you forgive me?” I asked, failing to keep the hopefulness from my voice.
“It means I don’t want to keep living in the past. It’s exhausting. I might one day be able to forgive you, but I’m not there yet.”
I nodded dumbly. “So we agree to just be…friends?”
His gaze darted away from mine and my stomach sank. I was so fucking stupid to hope.
“I’m not there yet either,” he admitted quietly. I caved in on myself, my lungs deflating.
“What even are we then? I mean, we can’t just be acquaintances, Dawson,” I argued. “I’ve known you since you were nine years old. We grew up together. We fell in love. Jesus, we were best fucking friends and got matching tattoos to prove it.”
I lifted my hand in evidence, a slanted beamed eighth note inked on the back between my thumb and pointer finger. Dawson stared at it and I knew he was remembering that day the same as me.
On my seventeenth birthday, we’d bribed a friend’s older brother to sneak us into the tattoo shop he worked at after closing, paying him way more than the stupid things were worth. It had taken so much convincing to get Dawson to agree, so I let him pick the design. When I’d seen the music note he’d chosen and he told me it symbolized our unbreakable connection, I’d fallen for him even more.
He clenched his jaw the longer he stared at my tattoo until finally dragging his gaze up to mine.
“I covered it,” he confessed almost inaudibly.
My hand dropped to my side as all the air left me in a painful rush. He shifted on his feet, waves of anxiety pouring from him as I stared at him. All the betrayal and anger I had felt evaporated in a second. The only thing I felt now was cold.
“You’d do anything to erase me from your life, wouldn’t you?”
I wasn’t sure he’d heard me, but his noticeable flinch said otherwise. I let out a deep sigh, fatigue setting in and clouding my mind. There was nothing else for us to discuss. Our slate was wiped clean, after all.
“I get it, Mercury,” I replied calmly, walking past him toward the house. “I’d erase me too.”
Chapter 10
Theo
It’s quiet here. Neverland never used to be quiet. It was always filled with our laughter and Dawson’s music. I miss it. I misshim.
It hurts to be here without him, but it’s the only place I can pretend.
Pretend he’s still mine. Pretend I’m still the man he loves.
This is too hard.
It’s all too much.
I’m always too much.
And yet never enough.
Chapter 11
Theo
Iremember the day I told Dawson I loved him for the first time. It was right here in the hayloft, in this very spot. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel him next to me. I can almost hear his song.
Does he remember that day?
Does he remember he said it back?
Or would he erase that too if he could?
Chapter 12
