Page 107 of Beast

"Today was supposed to be my wedding day," she cries. "That old hag always hated me and she decided if she couldn't have youthen no one could, especially me. She hated that I was so much younger and prettier than her."

I decide I'm too high on drugs to apply any logic to the situation. Jennifer is hurt and angry and not making any sense, and I feel like I'm about to crack open from the inside out with all this goddamn pain.

I close my eyes and drift back into a sweet darkness where there is no more pain and I can't hear Jennifer's anguish anymore.

"I'm sorry,"Jennifer says, unable to look at the fresh crisscross of scars on my face as she strikes the fatal blow into my heart. "But I just can't do it."

She puts the diamond ring in the palm of my hand.

She’s leaving me.

Feeling destroyed, I’m ready to beg. "Jennifer, please don't leave me."

It’s been two months since I left the hospital. I've had six surgeries to repair my wounds since the horrific night Guinevere took to my face with a knife. But with each operation, my hope fades. One side of my face is still a mass of scars and it’s not going to get much better.

Jennifer has tried to love the new version of me. Tried to hide her revulsion when I touch her. But she can't.

I'm losing her and the pain of it might actually be the thing to finally fucking kill me.

Since I left the hospital, she hasn't let me kiss her or make love to her.

I thought she just needed time to adjust.

But apparently not.

"I'm still the same man you wanted to marry," I say through the cold ache in my throat.

"But you're not. The man I was going to marry was...different."

"You mean he looked different," I say darkly.

She doesn't try to deny it.

"It’s not my fault," she says, still not looking at me. "I can’t help it if I don't feel the same way anymore."

I feel my heart die and turn black in my chest.

Jennifer leans down to pick up the overnight bag she’d packed earlier. "I'll be back to collect the rest of my things later when you're not here."

My gut twists with agony.

"But I love you," I rasp.

She looks ashamed. "You shouldn't. I don't deserve it because I can’t love you back. I can’t even look at you." She lowers her lashes. "It makes me shallow and probably cruel. But I accept that about myself. You need to accept it as well."

She lifts her long lashes to finally look at me, and I see the pity in her eyes. Pity and…repulsion.

She’s repulsed by me.

She adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder, “Goodbye, Adam.”

And without another word, she leaves the room and walks out of my life forever.

CHAPTER 41

BEAST

“I’m sosorry that happened to you,” Belle whispers, her lashes glittering with tear drops.

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