“Life isn’t so easy outside your mansion, is it?” I plowed on, headfirst into heartbreak. I felt my heart splinter and dissolve into pieces, the void left in its place quickly filled by a sense of self-loathing stronger than anything I’d ever felt before.
I watched as the lies sunk in and he accepted my words for truth. Saw the hard glint of hatred and distrust cloud over his normally warm hazel eyes. Witnessed the change in his demeanor from welcoming to foreboding, as his shoulders straightened and his chin lifted. He looked down at me with an arrogant frigidity I’d only ever seen him adopt in his father’s presence.
He despises me.The thought nearly brought me to my knees.
You see, the thing about Bash and me was that we didn’t lie to one another. Not ever. So even that day, when I was lying through my teeth for the first time since he’d come into my life, he believed me. He trusted me to tell him the truth.
And I used it to destroy him.
Worse, even though he might hate me, I knew he would never lash out with cruelty or disrespect. In a twisted, backwards kind of way, it might’ve made me feel better to hear him yell and rage against my cruel words, to put up a fight when I broke his heart. But it simply wasn’t in his nature to lose control in front of other people – especially not those who’d hurt him. He accepted my words with grim resolve and, true to hisblue-blooded upbringing, banished any pain deep down, where no one could see. His expression was calm – an unrippled lake on a windless day – but his eyes were a turbulent sea, offering the only glimpse of his devastation.
“Goodbye, Lux,” he said in a strangled voice, stuffing his hands into his pockets and staring at me with that quiet intensity he constantly radiated. The look in his eyes undid me.
I drank him in, knowing full well it was the last time I’d ever see him.
“Goodbye, Sebastian,” I choked out, my voice catching as I said his name.
I turned quickly so he wouldn’t see the tears that had finally broken free and walked away from the love of my life, leaving my heart behind.
I never let myself look back. Not even when I heard the unmistakable sound of a fist repeatedly hitting the trunk of our oak tree with enough force to strip away a layer of bark.