Page 274 of Breathe Like Hell

A doe, running into a dark forest.

“Why didn’t you tell me that would happen?” I asked, a few more tears squeezing out from below my eyelashes as my face hovered over his. “That I could become an angel? I didn’t know you were gone when I went to Heaven. I didn’t know how it happened.”

Micah hesitated for a moment. “I thought it might upset you. I had immoral plans about it.”

“Oh.” I pressed the pad of my index finger to his chest, laying back down. “You would use your aspect, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “A dying angel, but still. It would’ve very likely been a traumatic experience for you, which is why I didn’t bring it up right away.”

I really had no idea how I wanted to respond to that.

I was happy I hadn’t needed to selfishly take the life of a random angel, but I’d still needed to take Micah’s. For nine long months.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind my lack of response.

He pulled the comforter up and tucked my body against his side, my head resting on his shoulder, and our conversation disappeared into sleep.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

MASON

It was exactly what I’d expected.

Micah was back, and Dakota would choose him. I’d served my purpose.

The miracle was over, and now she could have the man she actually wanted.

So many times, I’d envisioned our end, my knuckles white as I attempted to cling to some version of the future in which we ended up together, but my brain always reminded me of the truth. We were unsustainable. Especially now.

I didn’t fit in this new world, and it was time I stopped forcing it. Micah deserved for me to fucking back off, once and for all.

So no, Dakota and I weren’t ending with a giant argument or with me killing her or killing myself or anything violent.

It was a quiet ending.

She loved me, and I loved her, but I wasn’t blind.

Micah did not and never would want me in his life again, and I owed him my absence.

Dakota would be accepting of that, because she needed him more.

I laid flat on my back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. I’d never found the motivation to clean my apartment, so it still sat in disarray around me. Splintered wood, shattered glass, jagged lines of onyx striking across the floor and walls and ceiling. If I could step into my old self, I knew I would go fight for her again, say fuck it to every horrible thing I’d done to Micah and not give up on getting Dakota back. Things were always fixable. But I could not be that person anymore.

I was a new person. A person who had watched both loves of his life die within seconds of each other. A person who knew what he was truly capable of.

The sound of my front door opening made me jump out of bed, and I silently prowled down the hall to see who was here. I stopped dead in my tracks when my eyes connected with Dakota’s. I looked past her, trying to see if she’d brought Micah, but she was alone. It was the first time this week she’d left his side.

“Dakota,” I said, keeping my voice flat to conceal my racing thoughts. She could sense them if she wanted, though. “Why are you here?”

“Because you should come back. I don’t like when you’re here.” She gestured to the disaster of my apartment. “I came to get you myself.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, baby.” I approached her, a lump in my throat and a burning in my eyes. I held her face. “I think we’ve run our course. You have Micah back now. You don’t need me to come over there anymore.”

She grabbed my wrists and pried my hands off her face, stepping even closer to me, the same defiant look in her eye I used to hate.

“No. I can’t leave you. I’ll never want to. And you can’t leave me, either. You promised me. We are toxic and messy and fucked up, but I am nothing without it. I would never choose him without choosing you. You know that.”

“I’m not sure about that anymore.”