His eyes glossed over, and he looked at me for a moment before his focus shifted to the ground. “But I don’t think I can survive this life if I don’t.” He was still whispering, and his lips trembled.
“Oh, God,” I gasped out again. I stumbled to the kitchen table where I’d left my keys, and I shook my head the entire time.
I was getting ready to walk away from him, very likely forever. I could see myself doing it, and I fully understood I needed to, and yet, I knew this was going to hurt as bad as anything in my life ever had—that was saying a lot for me. I knew I was going to do this, even though every cell in my body wanted to resist it. The anxiety that accompanied that notion was agonizing. It felt like a taut rubber band stretching through my body that was ready to snap, and when I turned back around to face him … it did.
“How dare you!” I screamed at him. I barely recognized the sound of my voice as it erupted from my throat. My palms burned as my nails dug viciously into them. “What right did you have?” My screams turned to sobs as tears streamed down my face, and when I tried to breathe, it came out as strangled gasps.
Kane was staring at my chest, the tendons in his neck strained, tears running down his cheeks too. He was making no sound at all, and it didn’t even look like he was breathing.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he gasped out when he finally took a breath. “I just… I don’t know how to… Please…” He was stammering, and when his voice broke, the words turned to quiet sobs.
It was painful seeing him this way. I’d seen tears of anguish like this from him only one other time in this life. I’d watched him cry, sob, and breakdown, and this was oddly almost as painful as that time.
I marched toward the door, and when I passed him, he grabbed my arm, yanking me back.
“No!” he yelled. “No. Please don’t go. Please don’t leave. I can’t…” He pushed me up to the wall beside the front door as I stumbled backward. His hands clutched at my cheeks, stilling my head, and he used his body to pin mine in place. He kissed me.
He kissed me!
“Stay, stay, stay.” He kept repeating the words against my mouth.
I wanted to sink into it. I wanted what his mouth was doing. I wanted more than even his mouth could do. I wanted it all, and I wanted to keep it forever.
And the very second I realized I couldn’t … I hit him.
His lips were torn from mine as my palm slammed hard into his cheek.
“Stay? You’re asking me to stay?” I glared at him. “How dare you. You have no right to touch me. You never had the right to.”
His hand clutched at his cheek, and he gaped at me for a moment until his eyelids finally fluttered, and he staggered back from me.
“You fucking bastard,” I spat out. But then the rage turned to anguish, and my lips twitched and trembled as more tears fell. “I fell in love with you,” I sobbed out the words.
He covered his eyes, his chest heaving and hitching as he cried.
And I walked out.
Part III: A Tomorrow Gone
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kane
The first night I actually thought might kill me. I’m pretty sure it nearly had. I wanted to die. It wasn’t the first time in this life I could say that, but there was something especially cruel about the desire this time. I’d had something amazing, and the entire time I’d had it, I’d refused to acknowledge what was lurking in the back of mind—I was always going to lose her. She was going to decide I wasn’t enough for her. She was going to decide she hated me. I was going to lose control of myself and hurt her in some deeply scarring emotional way that only I could inflict on her. Or … I was going to hit the end of this project and walk away from this life. But I was always, always going to lose her.
Why couldn’t I have just stayed away?
I called Shawn early the morning after. It was Sunday, and there was little chance the man would be gracing any pews or saying any prayers. I knew I needed to stay busy before I backslid into who knows what atrocious behavior. I tended to lose control quickly when the wheels fell off my life. I wasn’t a stupid man. I was also plenty self-aware. But for all the awareness I had, when I was ready to kick my own ass, I was exceptionally good at it.
Helene had been right about the lengths I’d go to hurt myself, and at the moment … I didn’t trust myself not to destroy her emotionally to do it, and I knew exactly what it would take. A married woman, one of her students, hell, a random bar skank. I craved pain. I needed to hurt. But I was also desperate to avoid sharing my pain with her or making her a part of my ugly cycle of self-destruction.