Page 103 of Illusory

“You’re notleadingme on,” gritted Trace, the word twisting out of him as though it were a bitter drop of poison on his tongue. “I love you andyoulove me.”

“Yes, I do. Ireallyfucking do.” I nodded, not even bothering to deny it. Because this wasn’t about denying the truth or hiding from it anymore. It was about finally facing it. “But I lovehimjust as much, Trace,” I said, my gaze briefly moving to Dominic who remained quiet and unreadable.

Other than a small tick in his jaw muscles, Trace didn’t react to my outright confession of my feelings for Dominic. He knew how I felt about him, and he’d gotten good at hiding his feelings about it, for the most part, but I stillknewwhat my words were doing to him. I knew how badly they were knifing his insides at that very moment. And it only cemented all the reasons I needed to do this.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to pray my feelings away for him, Trace. How many times I wished I could stop loving him, or stop loving you, or stop loving you both. It would have been so much easier that way,” I said, my weary eyes volleying between the two of them. “But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to make my heart stop wanting what it wants, and if I haven’t been able to do it upuntil now, I know I probably never will.”

“Jemma—”

“But it’s wrong and I know that now,” I went on, refusing to let him stop me from saying the things that needed to be said. “I can’t commit to either of you and I’m hurting you both because of it, and for what? Because I’m selfish and greedy and can’t stand the way I feel when I’m not inyourarms? Because I can’t take a full breath of air unless I’m breathinghimin at the same time? I don’t have the right to do this, and I’m not going to anymore. Not ever again.”

“Look, we’ve all had a long day. You’re not thinking clearly right now. This doesn’t need to be decided tonight,” said Trace, taking another wary step towards me, clutching onto that unyielding hope that all of this would go away with just a little bit more time. That I’d eventually come to my senses and choose him.

It’s what he was always waiting for. But that wasn’t going to happen.

It had never been what was going to happen. I think somewhere deep down inside I’d always known that, and maybe that was why I’d kept them so close to my heart and refused to let either of them go. Maybe deep down I knew we were doomed and just wanted to keep holding on for as long as they’d keep letting me.

But it was wrong, and I knew that now.

“I am thinking clearly, Trace, and I’ve already made my decision,” I said as tears blurred my vision and then spilled from my eyes. “Everything is a mess because of me. You’re both hurting all the time because of me. Because I refuse to choose. Because my heart is so torn down the middle that most of the time, I’m pretty fucking sure I can actually hear the broken pieces of it banging around in my chest.” I shook my head as more tears fell down my cheeks, my gaze driftingbetween the two of them in search of some kind of anchor that wouldn’t gut me just to look at.

Neither one said a word as they clung to my eyes and the words leaving my lips, as though they would determine the course of their entire lives. I supposed in some way it would. They just couldn’t see that this was for the better. That they were better off without me. They couldn’t see that I was doing this for them.

They would, though. Eventually.

“I can’t be with either of you anymore. Iwon’t.” Trace and Dominic both took a step toward me, as though I were a prized butterfly preparing for flight, a cherished monarch they sought to keep, but I quickly matched it with a backward step of my own. “It’s over. We’re done,” I said as a sob tried to corkscrew its way out of me, but I rammed it back down into the lowest pit of my stomach.

Trace’s mouth popped open as though I’d just sucker-punched the air out of him while Dominic just stared forward, his frozen expression wracked with shame and remorse like he was the one somehow responsible for all of this.

I took another step backward and my feet kept going as my calves burned with the urge to run away from what I had done. “I won’t blame either of you if you want to leave. I don’t expect you to stay here and do anything for me. I certainly don’t expect you to stick around here and risk your lives for me.” I’d never expect that of them and certainly not after what I had done to them. “I think I…I think I’d actually prefer it,” I mused quietly as I continued backing away toward the hallway.

“Angel, you don’t have to do this,” said Dominic as he tried to take a step toward me, but again, I retreated. His jaw tensed. “Do not spite your heart to spare my feelings.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Yes, it is,” he answered, as though positively certain of it. As though he had no clue how far from the truth he had actually strayed. “He’s your soulmate.”

My gaze flicked to Trace. “I know that.” Every atom in my being knew that.

“Then you know that he’s the one you’re supposed to be with,” he said as he grabbed my wrist and stopped me from going any further out the room. His eyes trained on mine and my body instantly heated as though warm honey were spreading through my insides. “He’ll make you happy, angel. I know that he will.”

Trace’s expression contorted with confusion, as though he was unable to make sense of the words coming out of Dominic’s mouth. But that was because he didn’t know the real Dominic or the lengths he would go to in his quest to make me happy. He didn’t know him the way I knew him. No one did.

“Do not deny yourself a chance at a good life because you feel bad for me,” he went on more urgently as though my happy ending were boarding the train as we spoke, and I had mere seconds to decide my fate. “Don’t taint what we had by making it the reason you end up alone.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then take the damn stars, angel.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” he asked aghast.

How could he ask me that? How could he not know that the stars didn’t even exist without him.Theywere my stars. Both of them. They were the only things that lit up the sky for me at night. The only things that mattered.

More tears rained down as I shook my head, unable to produce the words I was sure were already engraved in my eyes, just as they were on my soul.

Maybe it was better like this; better if I didn’t say anything at all. Maybe it would be easier for him to let me go if he didn’t know just how deeply I was in love with him.

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