I would never leave them.
I would die doing whatever I could to protect them.
I would do that because I loved them.
And love was the cruelest prison of all.
I gasped, sucking in air as my mind returned to the library, and my body jerked in the wingback. I flopped over my legs, inhaling hard as the room spun with books and pages, all blurring together in mockery.
Books that I’d read, cover to cover, countless times over. Stories of bravery, fantasies of dragons and shapeshifters, romances where the hero always saved the girl.
I bared my teeth and growled at them all. Useless tales. Utter bullshit. The real stories of love and sacrifice were far less pretty and very rarely tied up with a happily fucking ever after.
Gemma.
Flinching, I groaned and shook my head. I didn’t want to think about her either. About the way her eyes glowed with pain. The way her voice caught with misery.
She’d argued with me, she’d pushed me, and she’d almost made me snap. But then she’d given in. She’d shrugged as if she was as lost as I was.
And then, she left me.
My breath hitched, replaying the way she’d shrugged before heading out the door. My heart had folded in on itself, burning to ash.
It still hurt—throbbing as if she’d ripped it free from my chest.
Who’d have guessed I’d be defeated by a simple, sad little shrug?
A shrug that said I’d hurt her more this morning by not even touching her than I had in any other interaction.
Christ, I didn’t even understand what she was shrugging about!
And why did something so innocuous as that punch me right in the heart and leave me empty and bereft and so many other complicated things?
That shrug had felt monumental. Familiar. It felt like a weapon that’d already successfully annihilated me before.
Yet...I can’t remember if that’s true.
I collapsed deeper into Storymaker’s wingback, wedging my elbows onto my knees and cradling my pounding head in my hands. My broken arm throbbed and the cuts on my hands that I couldn’t recall earning stung as I dug fingernails into my scalp.
Every part of me hurt.
I’d woken this morning, shivering my ass off in damp clothes with stairs cutting into my body, and for a flicker of a moment, I pictured a bath. A star-studded sky. A kiss...
But then, it’d vanished.
Just a dream.
Nothing important.
Until I’d found her in the library, and she told me otherwise.
She’d looked different.
There’d been a light in her eyes. A welcome. A warmth. When I’d first stepped into the room, she’d blushed and given me a smile that summoned me to her. The overwhelming sensation of affection tugged me forward, promising comfort after the disastrous sleep I’d had on the stairs.
I’d wanted her.
Her smile said she could soothe my aches, stitch my wounds, and grant me peace that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else but with her. She looked as if she was excited to see me. As if she wanted to hug me, kiss me, touch all my scars and share pleasure with someone who’d trapped her.
How was that even possible?
The last interaction we’d had was...
It was...
Wait, it must’ve been...
No, it was when...
Ah, hell.
I groaned under my breath, tugging at my hair, raging at my crippling headache.
Why can’t I remember?
This wasn’t like before.
This wasn’t like all my other memories, skulking and slithering behind armored doors, just waiting for sleep or distraction to punish me.
This was...blank.
A blank emptiness that spread like cancer, chewing up pieces of my day, my night, and everything in-between.
Think!
I grunted as my head throbbed harder, and my balance believed I lived on the bow of a ship and not in an ivy-smothered mansion.
I’d been cruel to her, I knew that. I’d been nasty, purely because having her say things like “making love” and “friendship” had fucking terrified me. I’d spewed all that shit about my past. I’d given her pieces of me that no one should ever know.
Why?
What had driven me to confess things I’d so firmly locked away? Things I’d trained myself to forget?
It’d been her. Her softness. Her empathy even while I denied her.
The way she spoke of pleasure and togetherness—she made it seem as if we’d changed our path last night and had committed to one another.
Committed what exactly?
Had she said she wanted me?
Had she said she loved me?
Because she’d looked at me as if she did love me...and that can’t possibly be true.
I choked, stumbling upright and swaying on the spot. Loving another person would destroy me. I wasn’t prepared to let someone have that much power over me again.
Never again.
I’d learned that lesson, and I can’t fucking do it again!
But you feel something.
“Fuck!” Breathing hard, I collapsed back into the chair.
Despite not remembering last night, I knew I was lying to myself. What I felt for Gemma had transcended just the need for a sexual release a while ago. I knew that. That conclusion was written in black and white. But the difference was, those memories were real. They hadn’t been planted there by her words. Those memories came with feelings and knowledge, not blank and empty.