Page 108 of Never Will I Ever

No doubt his father wanted him out of here as soon as possible.

Avery must read something in my expression, because I hear the floor creak under his weight, only to open my eyes and find him approaching slowly.

“It doesn’t have to end like this.”

A sharp laugh leaves me as I step away again. “Oh, really? Enlighten me, then. What happens when you go home? When you get back into Foltyn and classes start again?”

I throw every question in his face—all the ones I’ve been struggling with myself—to see what his answers might be. Because I know mine now; I’ve known them for a while, I think.

Don’t betray your heart.

But what am I supposed to do when my heart betrays me instead?

A helpless look crosses Avery’s features, eyes pleading as they lock with mine before glancing around the cabin. Searching, like the answer is written somewhere on the wood inside these wallsrather than the organ beating in his chest.

“I don’t know what happens,” he whispers, shaking his head. “I haven’t even thought about that yet. I thought we had more time.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that we could. If he’d just stay, we could. But I don’t say it. If that isn’t an obvious option to him, then do I really want him to stay?

My teeth sink into my cheek for a moment before I mutter, “Well, the clock’s just run out. The bubble’s burst, and it’s time to head back to reality.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Why? It’s true.” I motion toward him, despair taking hold. “You’re leaving, right?”

He gnaws on his lower lip, the way his eyes fall to the floor making it clear he is, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. And as I stare at the guy who I’ve spent weeks with, laughing and smiling and fucking and healing, I don’t recognize him.

Maybe Cole was right after all.

Sleeping with him didn’t mean I knew who he really was, it only made me blind to the parts I didn’t want to see. It let me fall for an illusion; the fantasy of the man I thought him to be.

Right now, he’s showing me who he really is.

A fraud, a coward, a liar.

He’s proving he hasn’t changed.

If I can fall in love with someone like that, then what the hell does that say about me?

The thought takes me off guard, knocking the wind out of me like a gut-punch. I thought I was fighting against the emotions he was pulling out of me; pushing back and shoving them away to save myself from the possibility of feeling like this. Yet it seems he snuck past my defenses anyway.

I don’t have long to linger on the revelation, because Avery takes a slow step toward me, snapping my focus back to thepresent. My immediate reaction is to move away again, to put distance between myself and the thing causing me pain.

And I fucking hate that his tortured whisper only makes me feel it more.

“I don’t know what you want me to do.”

To stay, to fight, to scream.

To do fucking anything other than lie down in submission, yet again.

On some level, I always knew it would come to this. He’d be placed in a situation where he’d finally have to show himself—hisrealself—to his father. And while I’d hoped he’d be up to the task, it’s obvious now that he isn’t.

Maybe he never will be.

And here I am, in love with him anyway.

My teeth grind together so hard, I’m liable to crack a molar. At least it’ll pair well with the broken heart struggling to beat in my chest.

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