“Donovan—” he whispers, my name choking out of his mouth.
“I’ll keep your secret. I won’t turn you in, but we have to be done, Shiloh.” I pause for a moment, thinking things through as my heart starts the process of breaking into tiny pieces. There’s no way this can be salvaged, though, so I have to just push through the pain like I do on the ice. “We’re done.”
Shiloh lets loose a small noise of despair as I turn away from him, walking as fast as I can from him so I’m not tempted to turn around and haul him against my body. I choke back the tears that threaten to fall as I pull my Jeep keys out of my pocket and climb in, turning on the vehicle to head off into the darkened city.
I should go home and shower. I’m not sure what clings to my skin and my clothing, but I can’t make myself turn off these brightly lit downtown streets. Like a beacon has been lit, I’m called to be elsewhere right now, to try and put myself back together as best I can.
I have practice in the morning.
I have a game in a few days.
I need to be whole enough to do my damn job.
I park along a quiet side street, then step out of the Jeep, tucking the keys into my pocket. The streetlights overhead shine bright, but they make me feel like I’m beneath a spotlight, and my skin prickles with discomfort. As I’ve often done before on nights where everything goes wrong, I make my way down a darkened alley, then tuck my big frame through a hole in a fence.
“Stars,” I whisper, because I need to remind myself out loud that there are things in the universe bigger than me and my broken heart at this moment.
Tipping my head up to find them, I spot the big dipper clustered among its friends, twinkling and shimmering in the clear winter night. I take a deep breath, waiting for the peace to come.
Begging the peace to find me and settle the thoughts rattling through my brain.
The fact that Oakley was right.
The fact that Shiloh is a murderer.
The fact that I could have died here, in this very place at his hands on the night we met.
I won’t admit that a shitty, sad little piece of me wishes he had killed me then, rather than letting his lies of omission take root in my heart. That would have been far kinder than letting me believe he was a simple artist with a tortured past, trying to live his best life here in Boston. It would hurt less in this moment to not be here beneath the stars, reeling in the aftermath of this night and the truths about him I finally know.
The stars twinkle overhead, but they don’t seem quite as bright.
The sky seems less peaceful and the world feels like it’s been thrown off center here in this place where I almost died at the hands of the man I’ve quietly grown to love more than breath itself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SHILOH
There’sa hole in my chest that feels like it’s slowly bleeding away all the color in the world… because Donovan doesn’t call.
CHAPTER THIRTY
DONOVAN
I don’t call Shiloh,but every day that goes by without hearing his voice breaks my heart a tiny bit more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SHILOH
There’severything and there’s nothing. Weeks pass, and I go to classes. I go to my job. There’s a bright spot where I get news that Iggy woke up and he’s going to be able to leave the hospital soon with his aunt.
He’s going to be okay, just like Donovan said. The news says nothing about his dad being found, and when I walk by the water where we dumped the body a week after Donovan walked away and took my heart with him, I hear people talking about the strong current from a recent storm. There’s already someone new in the building we cleaned up, destroying any evidence we might have missed.
Even the aches in my body start to dull… but there’s one that doesn’t stop.
My heart.
It’s not hollow after all. It’s there, and it’s beating, and every beat feels like it’s trying to tear me apart from the inside out, because it only came back to life for a man who told me he couldn’tbewith me anymore.
