Page 81 of Love Me

I’m losing my grip, making me drag her down with me. Her upper body is already half off the cliff. I would sacrifice myself time and time again for her.

I try to yank my hands from her, but her fingers dig into my wrists.

“You’re falling too. Stop holding me.”

She grips tighter, nails clawing into my skin. My heart both inflates and deflates in my chest.

“You’ll follow me to death? The guy who’s going to marry and have children with another girl?” I need to anger her enough to get her to let go.

Her eyes narrow on mine. “You get to live and look at me with guilt eating at you. Do you hear me? That will be your damn punishment.”

So many words remain unsaid while I try to think of what I can say to make these last moments count.

“In the end, it was and will only be you, about you…”

The moment vanishes when Dane appears, holding a rope. He throws it at me, helping to pull me up.

I land safely on the clifftop, and I fall to my back. When I lift my chin, my eyes find Celine’s teary ones.

“Sky, baby…”

One second she’s rocking on her ass; the next, she punches me in my shoulder.

Abigail screeches and says, “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“Easy there, sweetheart. He asked for it,” Dane says.

“You two… you are like two deer flashing their Bambi eyes, filled with abandonment issues, when you have no idea what it cost––”

“Abi, enough.”

I understand better than anyone what she’s going through, but it was our decision and now we must live with the consequences.

“What do you mean?” Dane asks her.

“That you don’t deserve her,” I say, brushing the dust from my shirt.

“With your ring on her finger.”

I push myself up and pass him by, unable to look at Celine. I can’t. Everything is just too raw.

Abi and I get back in my car and drive back to campus.

She places her hand on my arm and says, “I hope when she finds out the truth, it will choke that hurt out of her.”

At this rate, I doubt it.

Seeing Celine tonight, relaxed and smiling, I know she will move past me. One day, I will no longer have any claim to her. And all I wish is to be fucking dead before witnessing that.

I park in front of our new temporary home.

“I need to clear my head,” Abi says and goes to her car.

After inhaling a few fortifying breaths, I leave the car and enter the house.

Inside my room, I head for the shower, discarding my clothes.

The water cascades down my body but doesn’t wash away my misery. I miss Celine with every fiber of my being. Palming the wall, my head drops.

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