His jaw clenches so tightly, I know he doesn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes are burning into mine, full of unchecked emotion. Longing, lust, desire, despair.
I want to look away.
I want to look forever.
But we don’t have forever.
We only have this moment.
Reaching up, he slowly pulls my hands from his face. I let my arms fall limply to my sides, feeling utterly defeated.
There’s nothing to say.
There’severythingto say.
“I guess this is goodbye, then,” he says starkly, turning from me. “I’ll move up my timeframe. I’ll…” He swallows. “I’ll be gone by morning.”
“Carter.” I choke out his name on a sob, shaking from head to toe. He goes still as my words spill across the space between us in a heartbroken flood. “Maybe it’s too late to say it. Maybe I shouldn’t say it at all because it’s selfish, because it won’t change a damn thing, because you’re leaving. But you should know that I…” I falter for a second, then steel my shoulders and force myself to keep going. To say the words I’ve been to scared to say for so long. “I love you.”
The world quiets, holding its breath. The very clouds overhead seem to tremble, caught in suspended animation. Carter slowly turns back toward me, his face haunted in the moonlight. His mouth opens, but no words escape.
“Do you hear me?” I whisper, stepping toward him. Closing some of the distance. “I love you, Carter.”
His eyes widen as something like shock reverberates through his entire body. A muscle in his jaw leaps, a telltale sign he’s struggling for control.
“I…” I’m crying full-force now. My head tilts back, trying to stem the flow, but it’s no use. I weep as the words tumble out. “I loved you since the first moment we met, in the back of that stupid SUV, the day my universe flipped upside down. I loved you in the torrential rain on a stone garden bench. I loved you on a dance floor in a gilded ballroom. I loved you on a dark night in a moonlit greenhouse. I loved you beneath the stars on a castle turret. I loved you when I was turning my back, walking away, pretending not to care. I loved you for all of it. Every moment, every breath, every fight, every heartbeat.”
He looks like he’s been sucker-punched.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m sorry I wasn’t braver.” My voice fractures along with the battered organ inside my chest. “I love you so much it makes mehate you. It makes me hateme. Because I can’t have you. I can’t be with you. If things were different, ifwewere different, I’d scream it from the fucking rooftops, Carter. I’d tell the world how I felt.”
“Emilia…” His eyes are watering again, red-rimmed with suffering. The sight breaks me.
“The only reason I didn’t say it before is I thought it would make it harder. But this is already the hardest thing in the world — the thought of staying away from you. Of never seeing you again.”
His cheeks are wet with tears.
“I…” I choke on my own emotions. “I had to tell you now, before you go… before this ends…” My tears are a torrent, so thick I can barely see his face anymore. “I love you. I love you. I love—”
His mouth hits mine, cutting off the rest of my speech. His hands delve into my hair, scattering pins across the terrace. I don’t even notice. My arms wind around his waist, fisting in the fabric of his suit. My lips part beneath his.
His kiss is the first day of spring after a deep freeze, awakening my every nerve ending. I am a flower brought back to life by his sunlight. And there on the balcony, beneath a star-studded sky, we bloom together with reckless abandon. A beautiful, breakable thing — fleeting as an April morning, fragile as a flower petal.
We were never built to last.
On his lips, I taste the salt of two sets of tears. I taste the beat of two hearts wrecked by a devastating endgame.
I taste goodbye.
Our mouths memorize each other. I try to commit every facet of this moment to memory. The firmness of his lips, the slight stubble on his jawline. We cling together, both in unbearable pain, prolonging the moment of parting as long as possible.
The sweetest kiss; the saddest farewell.
In my heart, I know this is the last time I’ll touch him like this. Kiss him like this. Feel his heat and his warmth. Smell the spice of his skin. Trace the dark slashes of his eyebrows, the strong bridge of his nose.
Never again will we allow ourselves to succumb to the relentless gravity that pulls us together. Once we step back, it’s over. Once we pull apart, it’s done.
The end of us.