Page 116 of Illusory

“Since you decided to freeze us both out,” answered Trace, his dimples practically blaring their disapproval at me.

“That’s not what—” I stopped myself because I totallydidfreeze them out. There was no point in denying it. “What else was I supposed to do?” I asked rhetorically as I pushed my plate away. “Just because I’m the one that happened to realize we were doomedfirstdoesn’t mean this isn’t hard for me too. It doesn’t mean I’m not hurting just as much as you are.”

“Good. Then we’re on the same page,” said Dominic, a pleased smile teasing his lips.

Except we weren’t on the same page at all.

“I don’t know what page you think we’re on, but it doesn’t change anything, Dominic. There’s still no future for us, and frankly, I kind of thought you of all people would have already seen that by now,” I added that last part more quietly. Dominic was nothing if not a realist and should have already reached the same bleak conclusion I had.

Then again, I shouldn’t have beenthatsurprised that he hadn’t. They were both unequivocally in love with me and I knew better than most that loving eyes could never see what was staring them right in the face.

“It’s more a matter ofnot acceptingit rather than one ofseeing it,” informed Dominic as he scooted his chair in closer to me and then propped his elbow on the table, smirking as he angled his body to me. Warmth spread from my chest outward as his gaze flicked from my eyes to my mouth and then back again. “See, we’ve had some time to think about things, Romeo and I, and we’ve decided that we don’t like this new dynamic very much. In fact, we don’t like it at all.”

My brows furrowed. “New dynamic?”

“He’s talking about the part where we don’t get to be with you anymore,” clarified Trace, making my heart do a strange dip and dive in my chest.

“Precisely. And since necessity is the mother of invention, we’ve decided to come to an agreement of sorts. One that would be mutually beneficial for all of us.”

My gaze darted back and forth between the two of them. An agreement? Between the two of them? A mutually beneficial one? “I…I don’t understand.”

“We want things to go back to the way they were before,” supplied Trace, leaning forward in his chair, encroaching on my space and making it hard for me to concentrate.

Frankly, both of them were entirely too close for my brain to be able to make sense out of the gibberish that was coming out of their mouths.

“Beforewhen?” I practically laughed the words out. “When I was going back and forth between the two of you like a Ping-Pong ball? Or before when you were trying tokilleach other?” I jumped up from my chair, sending it screeching backwards several feet behind me.

The two of them sprang up from their chairs right along with me, in unison, and again I laughed. This wasinsane. Like literal insanity. Either they had finally cracked and lost their minds entirely or this was some kind of sick, twisted game they were playing to get back at me for hurting them.

And Ireallydidn’t want to believe it was the latter.

“You’ve both lost it,” I decided and started to turn to storm out of the room, but Dominic grabbed my elbow and pulled me back before I could get anywhere, his eyes pleading and desperate. “Let me go, Dominic!”

“Admit you want the same thing, and I will. Admit you’re just as unhappy as we are.”

The floor felt as though it were undulating beneath me, conspiring to knock me on my ass. I tried to find something solid to hold on to, but there was nothing there at all anymore.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice small and wrought with hurt. “Why are you messing with me like this? Is this some kind of joke to you? Because it’s not funny—it’s cruel,” I said and tried to walk away again, but he kept me right there before him with nowhere to look but into those glittering pools of sin that had been my undoing so many times before.

“No more games, angel. No more pretending.”

My chest squeezed again because I could see the sincerity in his eyes, but it only made it that much more difficult for me to understand. “Then what? What are you saying to me right now?”

“We’re saying we’re fucking miserable without you, Jemma,” said Trace stepping up beside him as though they were some united front against my crumbling heart. “We’re saying neither one of us wantthis.”

I blinked at him, desperately trying to stop my ears from ringing in my head. “Well,thisis it, Trace. There is no other option butthis. This is exactly where we’d been heading all this time—I was just too stupid to realize it before.” I laughed again, but it was a broken, humorless thing. “I can’t choose and that’snevergoing to change no matter how long we try to drag this thing out for—”

“I’m not telling you to choose,” he said softly.

I stared at him, blinking back the tears that were welling in my eyes as I tried to process what he was telling me, but I couldn’t make it fit right. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Trace. This isn’t you. You’re—” I shook my head, trying to find the right words to explain this all away. “You’re not yourself right now. YoujustTurned—your emotions are all over the place. You have to give it more time.”

He stepped toward me, crowding out my space and thoughts and the sound of my wailing heart. “No amount of time is going to make me be okay without you, Jemma. This life. A future. Love. Taking another fucking breath. I don’t want any of it if it’s not with you. Don’t you get that?”

I couldn’t pull in enough air to fill my lungs—I was hyperventilating.

“We’re not asking you to commit to anything, angel. We’re just asking you to keep an open mind.”

“An open mind towhat?” I gasped between breaths. “To dating you both at the same time?”

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