Page 94 of The Beginning and End of Everything
There’s a gym bag on the bed with piles of folded clothes around it. "Where are you going?"
"Away."
"Away where?"
When he finally lifts his gaze to mine, there's a distance in his eyes that I don’t like. "We're done, Poppy.” He shoves clothes into the bag. “The flat is paid up for the next six months, and all the bills are covered."
Shock ripples through me. He’s leaving me?
With each passing second, every new article of clothing he packs away, the worry and fear and confusion are swallowed by anger and hurt.
My fists clench, my jaw tightens, then I grab a stack of T-shirts and hurl them across the room. “Fuck you!” I take a pair of jeans and chuck them at him, then the bag. "You don't get to give up that easy!”
He hasn’t budged or said a word, he won’t even look me in the eye, so I shove my hands against his chest and push him as hard as I can.
“Did you hear me, Brandon? You don't get to give up that easy!"
Seconds tick by before he closes the space between us and pulls me against him. I fight his grip, but his thick arms pin me in place, making me feel unbearably broken in his arms.
"I hate you," I breathe against his chest.
"You should."
My fingers fist his shirt. The thought of letting him go terrifies me. There is so much that's wrong between us, an ocean of loss and heartbreak, anger and sorrow, but I need him. I’ve needed him since I was ten years old. "Please,” I beg. “Don’t do this.”
A small frown line sinks between his brows while he cups my face, tilting my head back until our eyes meet. "I love you, Poppy. But I hurt you, and sooner or later, I'll do it again. Sometimes love is about sacrifice."
But it’s my heart that’s being put on an altar, and that doesn’t seem fair.
"I told you once that I would destroy you." His thumb brushes my bruised cheek, sending a twinge of pain across my jaw. "I'll give everything I have not to."
He kisses my forehead before grabbing the bag from the floor and zipping it, then he walks out of the room without a backward glance.
After everything we’ve been through, he thinks he gets to just walk out? All of my life, Brandon has tried to decide what I do and don’t deserve, and I’m not letting him this time. He thinks his leaving will somehow save me when all it will do is inevitably destroy me. Rage bubbles to the surface, sending my pulse into overdrive.
"You quit.Everything!” I storm after him, swiping at tears. “You quit the army, and Connor, and now me.”
He stops midstride and whirls around with clenched fists, to face me. "How can you want this, Poppy?"
"I don't wantthis." I take his hand, fighting the sob lodged in my throat. "I just want you."
"Last night.” He yanks his hand from mine. “Thatiswhat I am. A ticking fucking time bomb, and babe, you can hate me all you like, I don't care." He reaches for the door again.
"You don't just walk away from something like we have."
“I’m doing it for you.”
“Don't youdaresay you are doing this for me.” I fight the emotions crawling and scratching their way up my throat. “You're doing it for yourself."
His chin drops to his chest, and he rests his forehead against the back of the door.
“You could get help, Brandon.”
His palm slams onto the door, and he spins around, dropping his bag before he storms toward me. "This can't be fixed! It will always be there. I'm trapped in my own damn head. Day in day out, and when I close my eyes, do you know what I see?" His face morphs into something hard and vicious, his voice rising with each word. "I see Connor's dead eyes staring at me. I try so damn hard to bring him back. And every. Fucking. Night. He dies. Tell me, can they delete that memory? Pull it out of my head?" He taps at his temple, jaw set, and tears welling in his eyes, and I’m left speechless because no amount of my loving him will ever erase that from his mind.
"No, they can’t take that away," I say. “But there's so much more to life than that piece of hell you constantly live in."
His eyes shut on a hard breath. "Thereismore, Poppy. It's you. And I want more for you—” he gestures between us—“than this."
