stairs and into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. Ninety silver threads grab at me, wrapping themselves around my arms and my neck. Entangling me like a web of lies.
He came.
It’s what I wanted. Him to come and say it to my face. But seeing him again has ripped the floor from beneath my feet. I knew it wouldn’t be easy and that seeing him again would send emotions raging through me like a storm.
But what I didn’t expect was how much I wanted to throw myself into his arms. To tell him I forgive him and that it’s okay. That it’s all okay, because he came. Because he came for me, and all that matters is that we are together, where we belong.
And even though I’m shaking from how mad I am, I’m beginning to understand. Everything he’s saying is starting to make sense.
He wanted to protect me. He wanted to keep me safe and from harm. It’s like what Harley and Reed went through before they got engaged. So much shit was thrown at them. But they came out of it stronger than ever.
And their story gives me hope.
But that’s their story, and this is ours. It’s not simple. And I am so angry. At Dax. At Julian Young. At the world.
At everything.
A silver ribbon wraps itself around my neck, and I yank it free, choking back a sob.
Fucking balloons!
Even if what he says makes sense, it doesn’t change the last three months. It doesn’t change the fact he thinks he can come back here and make my heart feel like it’s been ripped out and torn to shreds. To say sorry, and that I’ll just what? Forgive him and that’d be it?
I pull another ribbon from my arm as my breathing quickens.
The balloons swell against the ceiling, pushing lower and lower, sucking the air from the room. Ribbons wrap around me like the vines from my recurring nightmare. Pulling me in different directions, threatening to burrow through my limbs and rip me into pieces.
Sweat pools along my hairline and a bead rolls down my back as I gasp for air.
I stumble over to the window, climbing onto my bed to throw it wide open as I grab at the ribbons, scrunching them inside my fists and then force them through the opening.
Blue and white surrounds me, bouncing off the window frame, the rubber making a high-pitched squealing sound that makes my ears ring as I force them outside.
I push and push, shoving balloon after balloon through the window.
The sky outside the house is overcome with blue and white as each handful of ribbons and their accompanying balloons are thrown out.
I don’t stop.
I keep going, my muttered cries of unfairness and heartache burning my lungs as more and more are set free, soaring off up into the sky.
Nothing stops me.
Not the little kid across the road pointing with delight and tugging on his mother’s sleeve to show her.
Not the neighbor walking his dog as it barks excitedly at the scene.
And especially not Dax, who’s looking up at me from the porch below, his eyes not on the balloons, but on my face.
Always on my face, never leaving. He doesn’t look mad. He doesn’t even look shocked.
He’s just Dax. Dressed all in black, the mesmerizing ink on his arms and neck visible in the t-shirt he’s wearing. He’s watching me with those deep brown eyes that I’ve spent so many nights losing myself in. Those eyes that belong to the only person I’ve ever loved. The person without whom the last ninety days has felt like the worst punishment for a crime I never committed.
He watches me with a strange calmness until only one balloon is left.
The silver one.
I grab the ribbon and push it through the window, but it catches on the latch, and I tug at it as I look down at Dax. My traitorous heart lifts before I cut down any hope it’s trying to raise in me that it’ll all work out in the end.
Because what if it doesn’t?
Ninety days.
“You warped reality, Dax Silver. You are the worst kind of liar. Whatever the truth is… you’re so far from it, it could smack you in the face and you wouldn’t know!” I yell.
I give the balloon one hard tug to free it, and the motion rips it open, sending silver glitter cascading down over the porch below, and all over Dax. Then it hangs there on the outside of the window, like a lifeless body.
Just like me, seeing him again.
“This is what you did to my heart.”
He looks back at me with such a sudden and intense loss in his eyes, silver sparkles shining all over him, splintering the light around him, that it steals the air from my lungs.
Even covered in glitter, the bastard is beautiful.
He opens his mouth to say something, but I wrap my trembling hand around the window ledge to support myself.
“You think I’m going to forgive you that easily?” I grab the window frame. “You can think again. Fuck off to infinity, Dax. And when you get there, fuck off some more!”
Then I slam the window shut, causing it to rattle in its frame.
I don’t eat dinner with Mom and Brett. Harley already left to go back to Manhattan. She came to say goodbye and gave me a hug before she left. But there wasn’t much else to say. I heard her talking outside, then the deep timbre of Dax’s voice as he responded.
He’s still there.
It’s been hours and it’s getting dark.
And he’s still out there.
Maybe he’s thinking. Like me.
Because all I’ve been able to do is think.
About him. About how fucked up this all is. About how much my body still reacts, just knowing he’s near to me.
I hate it. All of it.
I hate the way my heart lifted when I saw him. I hate how heat fired low in my stomach when I looked into his eyes and remembered the way he would hold my eyes as he made love to me, or when he fucked me from behind in front of the mirror.
I hate how my core clenched with need as I saw his tattoos on his neck. How I love knowing that when I kiss them, especially the bird, that it makes him suck his breath in. That he rasps out his nickname for me—Sunbeam—like it’s the most precious word in his vocabulary.
And I hate that when I got changed into my pajamas for bed, my panties were soaking for him.
That even when I want to hate him so much for pushing me away, my heart and my body still want him.
Every part of me still wants him.
I can deny it as much as I want. But I know it. And he knows it.
Something about us just fits.
We were supposed to find one another. As stupid as it sounds, I know it’s true.
No matter what happens now, I know I was meant to meet him.
Despite everything, he’s still helped me. Brett’s accident, Dad’s death, Casey… It all hurts a little less because of Dax. I’m living again because of him. I’m no longer stuck in a time loop of blame and self-loathing. And I have him to thank for that, regardless of what else has happened since.
I open the window gently and then lie back on my bed, breathing in the night air as it flows into the room.
He thought I was in danger. He found those photos somehow. He knew Julian was watching me and the estate. So while he was building his own insurance policy of evidence against Julian should the police let him down, he was also building an escape for me. Even back then when we went to New York.
He was thinking of me.
I get that he would have had to keep being an informant a secret from his friends and family. And I understand that Dax, more than anyone, wouldn’t trust the police fully, and probably knew we were all safer not knowing. It’s a small comfort knowing that no one else knew. Not even Jasmin. It wasn’t only me he was shutting out. He took it all on himself. He carried the burden alone.
Just like he’s lived so much of his life. Being the protector. The big brother. The adult. Having to make hard decisions and put other people first.
I told him I was here for him on the roof terrace that day. I tried to fight for him. I was ready to fight straight away. And in his own way, he was fighting for me too.
Even if it didn’t feel like it.
“You could have called me. I haven’t heard your voice for three months. I love your voice,” I choke out, loud enough for my voice to carry through the open window.
My eyes sting as I stare at the ceiling as a deep exhale floats up from the porch.
“Just hearing yours would have made me cave, Rose. I would have come for you and begged you to come back with me. I would have put you straight back in danger again. I couldn’t risk it. Not until the inside guy was found. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you because of me.”
The porch sofa creaks below.
“I am sorry, Rose. I’ll say it until my tongue bleeds. I’ll tell you every day until you believe me. I did everything because I thought it was the right decision at the time. Not because I didn’t want to tell you the truth. Not because I wanted to shut you out or push you away. I did everything because I didn’t see any other way. I…” He curses low, but I still catch it. I still catch the emotion brimming in his words. “I promised you infinity. And I meant it. I will tell you I’m sorry for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes.”
I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle my sob and turn onto my side, curling up into a fetal position.
We’ve never spent the night close together like this and not been wrapped up in each other’s arms. I would have my head resting on his chest, over his compass tattoo. I would be listening to his heartbeat as it calmed me to sleep.
But tonight, all I have is my cold pillow beneath my cheek and my duvet twisted into a creased mess.
And I have Dax… two stories below me. His heart seeming as heavy as mine.
I press my face into my pillow, not wanting him to hear my raggedy breath as I sob without tears.
Until eventually he says, “Good night, Rose.”
