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I don’t get to go back now. I don’t get to change my mind.

The snowfall is heavier now, and the wind cuts through my coat. I pull the scarf tighter. My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking.

I love him too much to let him waste his life on someone like me.

33

CAMERON

My apartment is freezing. I must have forgotten to adjust the thermostat before passing out last night. My body aches, muscles tight and protesting as I force myself out of bed.

The shower takes forever to heat up. I hate these old buildings. I stand there naked, arms wrapped around myself, teeth chattering while I wait for the water to turn from icy to scalding. When it finally does, I step under the spray and let it burn. The heat seeps into my bones slowly, painfully, like thawing frozen limbs. I brace my hands against the tile and let the water pound against the back of my neck.

I should go home for Christmas. Mom has been texting me every day, asking when I’m coming back to Connecticut. She always asks gently, never pushing, but I can hear the hope in her messages, the longing. She’s been kind my whole life, understanding in ways my father never was. When Dad would go too hard on me about grades or sports or the future, Mom would step in, quietly, diplomatically, but firmly. She’d remind him I was doing my best, that I was a good kid. She’d stand up for me. I miss her.

The water runs over my face, and I close my eyes, thinking about Lucien’s father’s voice on the phone, so full of hate and vitriol. He’s a child abuser. That’s what he is. I wish I could protect Lucien from the hate. I wish I could stand between Lucien and his father the way my mom stood between me and mine. I’d tell him he’s good, he’s enough, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re over. The healthiest thing I can do is move on, beginning with going home to Connecticut to spend Christmas with my mom. I should let the distance and time do what they’re supposed to do to make this hurt less. Except it doesn’t hurt less. It hurts more. Every day without him is worse than the one before.

I torture myself thinking about being in bed with Lucien, and how he touched me with such certainty, his hands moving across my chest and my back with assurance. He knew exactly what I needed before I even knew it myself.

And his voice was almost hypnotic.

Cam.

He’d say it with such need, keeping the syllable of my name on his tongue for as long as he could. When he spoke near my ear, his breath warm against my skin, his voice would drop even lower, and I could feel the vibration of it through my chest when he pressed close to me. Cam.

I brace myself against the shower tile, my knees almost buckling at the memory. I hang my head under the heavy flow of the shower, hoping to exorcise the ghosts of his touch, his voice, from my soul.

But he worshipped me in ways I can never erase. He made me sacred to him, and his devotion to me felt soul-deep. How could he lose faith in me so easily? The grief it brings is stunning.

I keep replaying moments in my mind, searching for the lie I must have missed, looking for when he stopped meaning it. But I can’t find it. Every touch, every whispered word, every moment of tenderness felt true. So either I’m delusional about what we were, or Lucien is capable of something so cruel that I can’t reconcile it with the person who held me.

I remember the first night in my apartment and the way he looked at me when I opened the door. There was no hesitation in his gaze, just an absolute conviction. He walked in without waiting to be invited, like he belonged there, always. And then he kissed me, and it rearranged my whole life. I hadn’t known a kiss could do that. I hadn’t known it could reach inside and shift everything into a new configuration, one where the world suddenly made sense in a way it never had before.

And then I remember seeing Lucien’s tattoo on that first night, dark ink hidden just inside his inner thigh, an image of weapons, arrows with three words in Gaelic beneath them. I never asked about it. I was too overwhelmed to ask. Too focused on what was happening between us to think about anything else.

But now I can’t stop thinking about it.

The water runs cold, so I turn off the shower and step out. I grab my phone from the counter and open Google, water droplets falling onto the screen.

I type: bundle of arrows tied three words Gaelic

The results load. I scroll through images, looking for something that matches what I remember. And then I see it, and my heart stops. I stare at the screen, my mind racing. I saw it our first time together in bed, which means he had it before we were ever together, before any of this.

I’ve been dreaming about your mouth for years.

Years.

The phone slips in my wet hand, and I almost drop it.

What the fuck?

I stumble to my bed, still wrapped in my towel, and collapse onto the mattress. Does it mean what I think it means? I read the results again. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do with this information.

My hands are shaking as I dry myself with the towel and pull on jeans and a hoodie. I grab a jacket and a beanie too.

I have to see him. I have to know.