Page 205 of Drown Like Heaven
“You’re not the only one who gets tobreak things,” I added, biting out the words.
“But I’m the only one who has to face the consequences, right? You finally embrace your Sigeian breeding?” His voice dripped with disgust, and Ihatedwhat he was saying because it wasn’t true. I didn’t look down on him for being born Thrausian the way most angels did. “Say you hate me. At least that would be honest.”
“I don’t hate you for being Thrausian. You fucking know that.” I laid my palms flat on the counter, bracing my arms against the cool surface. I didn’t look back at him.
“But if I wasn’t Thrausian, we would’ve—”
“If you weren’t Thrausian, you wouldn’t have beenyou!” I spun around, anger raising the volume of my voice. “We wouldn’t have been together in the first place if you weren’t! Stop putting words in my mouth that I never said!”
He just shook his head, backing out of the kitchen. “I’m done,” he said under his breath.
“Fine.” My jaw clenched as I turned back.
I stared down at my hands pressed flat on the counter, hearing him leave the house behind me, my heart pounding in my chest stronger than it had in years. Pain lanced my chest when the door slammed shut hard enough to shake the walls.
Chapter 55
Dakota
“Pull off here,” I instructed Mason. He turned the steering wheel, driving us off the shoulder into the small lot, his tires crunching over the cracked asphalt and pine cones, headlights catching the misty raindrops.
He put the car in park, then stared silently out the windshield, both hands gripping the wheel, fingers tightening. I turned to face him, my gaze tracing his profile, my mind futilely trying to rationalize what I was doing to Micah once again. But this wasn’t an accident, wasn’t something I could argue into nonexistence; it was me choosing the sickness over and over again. Making the bad choice.
Iknewit was wrong, but maybe I’d always been destined to be wrong. To be ruined.
I didn’t deserve anything more than this dim survival, throwing myself between two massive forces, betraying them both, betrayingmyself. Neither relationship was destined for happiness in the end, and I couldn’t quit pushing on the wound of that. Testing the limits. Giving in to my compulsions.
Last night, the grade for my Process Design quiz had been inputted. I failed. Bombed, really. It was the lowest grade I’d gotten on a test in a while. I didn’t tell Micah.
And then this morning, I got a notification for a zero on a different assignment in a different class—that I had also completely forgotten about. Panicking, I’d frantically emailed my professor about an extension, but he’d only reminded me of the policies outlined in the syllabus stating that late work would not be accepted withoutpriorapproval. He hadn’t even been rude about it, but I’d still cried in the shower until the water ran cold.
Everything I thought I had a grip on was slowly but surely sifting away through my fingers.
Ignore it.
Mason sighed, then shut the engine off and got out of the car. My eyes tracked him while he walked around the hood before he opened my door, leaning in to unbuckle my seat belt for me, then pulled me out of the car. I left my phone and all my belongings on the seat, leaving behind the unanswered texts from Mila.
I started towards the dark entrance to the forest on my own, pushing thoughts of all my failures away. I stopped when I could hear Mason wasn’t following me. I glanced back at him, still standing by the car.
“Didhetake you here?” Mason asked, voice strained.
“Do you know this place?”
“Answer my fucking question.”
I ignored him, then trudged onto the trail, not caring about the mud getting on my boots or the rain wetting my hair. But I had a pit in my stomach over his question, and I wasn’t sure why. Clearly Mason knew this place meant something to Micah. What else did he know about him?
Mason caught up quickly, visibly mad at me, visibly distracted by whatever he was thinking about.
Perfect.
I needed him not to realize what I was planning to do before I did it, because he would definitely stop me if he figured it out. Ididn’t want him to give him the option. Recklessness thrummed through my blood.
The trees were dark and ominous above us, the sky barely showing through. Dampness in the air made it feel cool in my lungs, a few raindrops pattering through the foliage. I thought about the oxygen I needed, and the neon Mason needed. I’d looked up the percentage of neon in Earth’s atmosphere—it was low. I wanted to know what Heaven was like.
Mason and I walked without speaking along the mossy trail, covered with pine needles and overgrowth, ferns springing up around the edges. Clear drops of rain shivered on the tips of branches, dripping on my shoulders and darkening the wet rocks under the trees. But I almost didn’t feel any of it through the hollow in my chest, the crazed desperation leaking out of me.
We reached the place where trees parted for sea, the sky cracking wide open above us. I eyed the edge of the cliff nervously as I stepped towards it.Self-destructive. Risky. Stupid.
