“I can see it,” my voice cracked through the wind. “When you look at me, I can see you looking at Eda—what she did to your mom, to my parents, to everyone.”
He shook his head in denial. “That’s what you see?”
I nodded.
“You’re wrong,” he ran a hand through his hair—pulling at the ends. “When I look at you, I see you. No one else. I see the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, I see the woman who loves people without a doubt, I see the woman who holds onto herself despite feeling weak. When I look at you, I see my wife and her beautiful blue eyes. I see the way your smile cracks when it’s not real and try my best to make it real. I see the future galloping into the sunset—one where we’re together, alone, and happy. I seeuswhen I look at you. You’re the portal to my future and if you close yourself from me, I’ll never survive. I’ll be stuck in a time loop of pure fucking sadness and eventually walk into death.”
Christian was all up in my face, brushing strands awayfrom my hair as he continued. “Without you, I am a vast ocean—finding my return to shore, but never reaching it because it’s you, Adelaide. You are my shore, my land, my ground, but without you I am floating into the abyss of nowhere.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “We’re not meant to be together.”
“You don’t get to decide that!” He reeled back with a roar. “I am trying everything to prove to you that I love you and I’m fucking sorry for lying to you for this long.”
Tracking towards him, I halted with a hand on the railing. His lies protected me. Initially, I was mad. But I understood why he did what he did—why he kept the truth from me. If I was in his place, if it was me getting revenge for my parents’ death—I wouldn’t be able to tell him. Not because it would ruin the plan, but because he’d bear the burden of knowing.
“I don’t blame you for lying to me, Christian.”
He squeezed eyes shut, pulling in the pain and control and sanity. “I want you, Adelaide. I want you not just because you’re still wearing my ring. I want you not because I want to use you and not because you connect me to the past. I want you because the best parts of me are with you and when those disappear, you make the worst parts feel like the best.”
“Stop saying things like that,” I pleaded with a down casted expression. “It makes me want to give in to you and I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because when I love you, I’m afraid something else will come up and I’ll hurt you.”
“You are not defined by thepeople in your life, Sunshine.” He moved closer, his ear caressing over my cheek. “Let me redefine who you are to me.”
I was so close to giving in. To grabbing his hand and walking away.
But I couldn’t do that to him.
Or myself.
I’d never once made decisions in my life, but I could make this one.
For both of us.
With lost strength, I replied. “Ican’t, Christian.”
“Okay.” Just when I thought he’d walk away—he pressed a velvetlike kiss to my cheek.
My hands fluttered open, and with an abrupt gasp, the necklacefell.
In the deep, mystic waters of the East River.
“No!”
One hasty, broken glance in my direction and Christian ran down the bridge without looking back.
In shock and complete disbelief, I stared down at where it disappeared in the water—gone. Just like that.
Tears gathered in my eyes, I didn’t…
That’s when the thought hit me.
I wasn’t ready to let go.
My feet took me before I let them, running after him even though I couldn’t see him. His barely-there snowy footsteps led me to the East River Greenway.
