Destiny answered.
“Since I was eighteen.”
The truth landed somewhere inside me and broke bones the bullet hadn’t touched.
Georgia’s voice came again, smaller.
“He said your name.”
I wanted to disappear.
For once, not to avoid Destiny.
To spare Georgia.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
Georgia had known on couches, in study rooms, in quiet pauses after kisses when my body stayed but some part of me drifted toward a girl with haunted eyes. She had known before the ring. Maybe even when she said yes. Maybe love made women hopeful enough to ignore what they already understood.
“I knew there was someone,” Georgia whispered. “I just didn’t know she was real.”
I tried to wake.
Tried to move.
Tried to rip the tube from my throat and tell her I was sorry, tell Destiny to leave, tell Georgia to go, tell all of them I had made a disaster out of every good thing because I was too scared to want honestly and too selfish to stop wanting at all.
Nothing happened.
I stayed trapped in the dark with two women bleeding because of me.
Then Georgia took my hand.
The hand Destiny had held.
The ring I bought her flashed somewhere behind my closed eyes.
“Dylan,” she whispered.
Her voice trembled.
Loved me.
Needed me.
Deserved better than me.
The machine breathed.
The monitor counted.
Somewhere in the hallway, Destiny walked away.
I felt it like a second wound.
The dark thickened again, but it was different now.
