He didn’t flinch at the past tense. He could probably see it for the lie it was. But wasn’t that what we’d always done? Our lies were woven into the fabric of what we were. There was no unpicking them now.
A tremor went through Dom as he closed his eyes. “Are you saying that, if I’d stayed, we might have made things work? That you would’ve stayed with me, even though I’d lied to you? While I was stationed overseas and thousands of miles away?”
My throat tightened. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Dom hung his head. His chest expanded then hollowed. “I do.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I would’ve forgiven you anything, Dom. I loved you that much. I would’ve coped with all of it if it meant being part of your life still.”
His hands fell away. They hung limply at his sides, like all the strength had left him. “And you wanted to tell me that…but I’d already left.”
My heart cracked at the pain in his voice. The anguish that was mirrored in my own chest. I reached up to touch him. “Dom?—”
“Excuse me,” he said stiffly, stepping back. “I need a minute.”
My hand hung in the air as he disappeared from the room. The patio door opened, a brisk breeze stirring the flames.
On its heels was the sound of Dominic’s yell. An inarticulate bleeding of his soul that he released into the world. I heard every bit of his pain. His frustration. His regret over what once was.
Over what could have been.
I dropped my head into my hands as sobs wracked me.
Outside, I suspected Dom was doing the same. I’d thought our hearts couldn’t break again, but I’d been wrong.
All it had taken was a single confession. A realisation of what had truly been lost.
And there, with only the wilderness as our witness, we remembered our past. We recognised the present we were trapped in.
And mourned the future that would never be ours.
21
Ryan
Sometimes, in the dead of night, I liked to hope that there were endless alternate versions of the universe. And that in at least one of them, Dom and I never broke up. That he didn’t leave. That I found him in time. That we made things right.
Perhaps, in one of those others, there was also this version of me. Maybe he’d do the right thing. He’d be the man he’d shaped himself into, and go into his room. He’d wake early the next morning, hire a car, and drive himself home. With every mile travelled, he’d remind himself of the woman he was to marry. Of the damage that would have been done if he’d made a different decision. He’d bask in the knowledge that he wasn’t shattering multiple lives.
He’d do the right thing.
But me? Here, in this universe?
I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
How could I when the sound of Dom’s sobs was tearing me in two? When the man I loved was hurting so desperately?
Because I did love him.
So fucking help me, but I did.
That didn’t mean I was going to run into his arms. In all honesty, I had no plan. No idea what was going to happen next.
But I wasn’t going to let him suffer. Not for a single second more.
The speaker caught my eye as I got up from the sofa. An idea came to me, and I didn’t allow myself to question it. Instead, I quickly grabbed my phone, syncing it and selecting the song.
Then I went to join Dom on the patio.