Page 76 of The First Kind of Love
Leaveme. Not just leave. That is what I’m doing, isn’t it? Indirectly. I’m leaving him, after I promised that I wouldn’t. This isn’t about Hayes and Aeris’ wedding. This is about us. This is about the future of our relationship.
What if there’re other investors? Are you willing to risk your relationship for an opportunity that could come around again? Either way, you’re the villain. You either leave your parents high and dry, or you leave the love of your life stranded, and something tells me that you’re going to disappoint one of them no matter what.
I don’t even try to suppress my wails anymore. My whole body undergoes a wide-reaching heat that chars me from the inside out, and my now-pale hands shake uncontrollably like my blood sugar’s taken an unforeseen drop.
Fulton doesn’t console me like he usually does, which only exacerbates the hopelessness prying apart my rib cage as if it’s nothing but a wishbone to be licked clean by insatiable, forked tongues.
I nearly fall to the ground, but the berth of my suitcase keeps me upright. “I’m so sorry, Fulton. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I blubber.
You’re a bad person, Shiloh. You don’t deserve Fulton. You refuse to balance work and life, and it’s not even because of extenuating circumstances. Multiple people have offered to help you, and you refuse. Every. Single. Time. You can’t seriously be hurt by this outcome.Youdid this toyourself. And you’ll keep doing it until you die.
Hackles lowered, it’s like all the emotion has been drained from Fulton’s spirit, the light from his eyes fading in a matter of seconds. Light that I’ve grown to love, to look for, to hang on to.
“So that’s it then? You’re just…leaving? After everything we’ve been through?”
“You know I can’t stay,” I whisper, the looming threat of distance tearing moth-eaten holes in the memories I’ve made with him.
He can’t even look me in the eyes. All he does is oblige me and move aside. “I don’t know you anymore, Shiloh. The girl I fell in love with is gone, and I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done to keep her here.”
“I told you I didn’t have a lot to give, and you promised me that was okay. But it’s clearly not enough.”
And as my heart flickers with the last, dwindling bit of life in the hearth of my ribs, I haul myself out the door, tailed by my suitcase instead of the man I wish was chasing after me.
24
LOSING GAME
FULTON
I’m not familiar with loss. I never have been.
Even with my dad out of the picture, I never grieved him like he’s dead—which, don’t get me wrong, he very much is to me. Loss was always something that happened to those around me, and I experienced small doses of it through an objective lens. But now, with my heart on a one-way track to failure, I’m afflicted with the realization that I’ve just lost everything I’ve ever wanted, all because I was too cowardly to chase after the first girl who saw the real me.
I can’t think straight right now. I’ve barely been afforded any time to think at all. I’m running on complete impulse, legs chugging in a record-breaking sprint down to the venue.
Why didn’t I stop her from leaving? Why didn’t I try harder? I just let her walk away from everything we’ve built over the last three weeks. We’re supposed to be in this together, and at the first speed bump of trouble, I showed her just how incapable I am of upholding that promise.
How could I ask her to choose between her family and me? I’m no better than that dickwad who broke her heart all thoseyears ago. Hell, if my mom needed me, there’s nothing in this world that would keep me from going to her.
Shiloh’s work will always be a part of her. If I want to be in her life, I have to accept that she has obligations just like I do. I’m mad at the situation. I’m mad at myself. But the last person I could ever be mad at is Shiloh.
Throughout the awkward elevator ride with four other people, the frantic sprint across the hotel lobby, and the treacle-slow trek through small dunes of sand, my mind’s masticated every single one of my worries beyond comprehension. I just keep spiraling. The anxiety won’t stop, and it’s the first time I’ve felt true, cold-blooded fear since meeting Shiloh. It devours what’s left of me like an ouroboros, governing the infinite cycle of destruction that continues to chip away at my unguarded defenses.
How am I supposed to break the news to Hayes and Aeris? I feel like I’m responsible for all of this.Iwas the one who brought Shiloh into the friend group.I’mthe one who was supposed to keep her here. Everyone’s going to be so disappointed.
Fuck! This isn’t how the day was supposed to go. Shiloh and I were supposed to have a great time, shed a few tears, eat some overly expensive cake, then skip off into the sunset while all our problems just magically disappeared.
The aloofness of her words hangs like a guillotine in the air, and no matter how far I run, I can’t escape the snarling pit of unease in my stomach. I feel sick. I feel like I didn’t just lose my soulmate, but I lost apartof me.
I come careering into the wedding party waiting underneath a vine-twined arch, and I feel two hands shake some sense into me before I realize that I was one step away from tackling my teammates in front of a sizable crowd.
“Hey, whoa. Ful, what’s going on?” Hayes asks, concerndripping from his brow, the rest of my team mirroring his look of confusion.
Safety measures off, my head housing a thousand and one worries about the uncertain dice roll of my future, I blink myself from my stupor. “She’s gone,” I say, my eyes flicking to Hayes’ with a note of desperation to…put me out of my misery? Help me?
“Who’s gone?” Gage follows up.
My heart can’t take this pain. I was never built to endure something like this, much less come out of it stronger. I want to break down. I want to stop feeling. I want to dispel the growing crescendo of voices in my head that trap me in a white, padded room.
