Another lunchtime and still no sign of her.
No noise.
No hint.
No clue.
I kept pushing forward, calling her name, peering into the hazy green foliage while stripping off overheating jackets and jumpers in the spring heat.
Another evening and still alone.
No progress.
No success.
No reunion.
And by midnight, when darkness thickened to its blackest and day-dwellers traded places with nocturnal, I had no choice but to put myself first, no matter how much it killed me.
My body needed help.
I had to be smart and feed the snarling emptiness in my belly, so I could find a way to repair the howling emptiness in my heart.
It took a few hours to switch direction and leave the river behind.
I cut through small tracks made by mammals and weaved around knobbly trees. I fell over at one point, almost too exhausted to stand, but I found my final reserves, hauling myself onward into an energy depleting march.
And lucky I did.
Because at the point when I was closest to giving up, that was the moment I found her.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
DELLA
* * * * * *
Present Day
NOW…BEFORE YOU judge me…
Let’s talk about that kiss for a second.
It was wrong; I know that.
It was morally gross; I know that, too.
It was all manners of bad, considering I took advantage of the boy who’d dedicated his entire life to making sure I was happy, cared for, and safe. I plotted silently in the dark; I willingly waited until his breathing changed and I knew he was asleep before I swallowed back the guilt, the nerves, and the shame to press my mouth to his.
I know everything I did was wrong, okay?
So you don’t need to tell me how majorly I screwed up. The instant his lips softened beneath mine, and I felt something I’d never felt when kissing Liam, I’d known just how terribly I’d screwed up.
Hugely.
Monstrously.
Life-ruiningly.
When his mouth parted, and the sweetest, heaviest sigh escaped him, and his hand came up to twine possessively in my hair, I knew I would forever punish myself for doing something so far out of permission.
Not because Ren kissed me back.
Not because he tasted so perfect or the quick flick of his tongue made a fireball ignite in my lower belly, but because, in that fleeting moment when my eyes grew heavy and I closed them to concentrate on kissing someone I never should have kissed, I grew up in an instant.
I felt things no girl should feel.
I understood things no child would know.
And I condemned myself because, as fast and as innocent as the kiss had been, it had showed me that I would never be allowed the one thing I wanted with all my heart.
Again, this is where my past knits with my present, and I can’t explain the true feelings I had then because they’re so tangled with my current heartache that it’s hard to distinguish the two.
What I can tell you is I didn’t need to be punished because I’d punished myself. I didn’t need to be told how wrong it was because I’d already whipped and cursed and shouted at myself. And I didn’t need anyone to tell me that it could never happen again because the moment my lips touched his…I knew.
I knew he was off limits.
I knew he would never be mine.
And the pain…ouch, even as a thirteen-year-old, it was excruciating.
Now that I’m eighteen and I’ve lived with that pain daily, pretending that I only think of him as my friend, convincing him—and sometimes myself—that he is far too precious to me to ever risk another idiotic move like that—I know in my heart of hearts, I don’t have much left.
God, it hurts so bad just saying that.
No amount of chest rubbing or false soothing can cut away the pain growing like a cancer inside me.
I’m an adult now.
And that means I no longer officially need him.
And because I no longer officially need him, I can move away.
I can cut ties.
I can put distance between us so our interactions will reduce to what normal families with children leaving the nest reduce to: the odd holiday gathering, the occasional phone call, a half-hearted text every other day.
I will be safe from ever being this wretched every time I look at him, smell him, laugh with him, adore him.
If I don’t do something soon, then my entire life is going to be destroyed. I’ll never find someone I can fall for. I’ll never be able to love another the way they deserved to be loved.
Those two days when I ran—the days when Ren couldn’t find me—were days I needed to glue shattered pieces back together in the best order I could. It was time I needed to talk to my younger self and tell her that she had her entire life in front of her and there would be plenty of other boys to kiss, to fall in love with, to want with such desire.