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Tucking my pillow under my head, trying to find a comfortable position, I couldn’t lay still. All my thoughts, what I just said, looped in my head. I could hear my mother’s reprimand, telling me I was better than that.

Fighting internally, I finally exhaled. “I didn’t mean that.”

“You did.” His tone had me flipping around to face him in the dark. Between my sight cutting through the dark and the outline of light streaming from the door gaps, I could make out Ash on the floor, one arm under his head, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“I probably deserve it.” His brow furrowed, a guilty expression flittering over his face. “You’re not the first to say or think it.”

Curiosity bubbled out of my mouth. “What do you mean?”

He blinked, seeming to get lost in his thoughts. After several minutes, he muttered, “I used to be someone better than this.” He readjusted his arm under him. “I used to be the person people turned to. Counted on.”

“What happened?” I whispered, afraid even that would make him stop talking.

His features darkened, his throat bobbing. I think he forgot that I could see him in the dark, probably thinking he was hiding behind the shadows.

“I lost people I loved, and in that, I lost more people I cared about.”

My mouth bunched together, feeling his pain as if it were my own. Our situations were probably totally different, but I could relate to the sentiment profoundly.

“You know the saying,‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s bullshit.”

“One hundred percent,” I agreed.

His head twisted toward me, and I could feel his curiosity zinging. “You’re far too young to be cynical like me.”

“I guess it’s what happensinthose years, isn’t it?” I tucked damp hair behind my ear, feeling a strange intimacy and freedom in the dark. “You could live a thousand years and never know the pain of heartbreak, or you could live twenty and have it destroy you beyond repair.” Emotion watered my eyes, the raw pain unexpectedly still hitting like an open wound.

Ash curled more on his side. “What happened?” There wasn’t an ounce of condescension, belittling the idea that at my age I could experience anything truly deep.

“He was my first love. My best friend...I thought he was my soulmate.”I loved him with everything I had. I blinked back the tears wanting to gush out. Anguish hung there like residue I could never get rid of, but the worst part was that deep down, I still hoped I could be the one. That he’d wake up and realize it was me he really wanted, though I knew it would never happen.

He had always looked at her the way I looked at him. Hope was a fucking horrible thing. It gnawed on you until you were nothing but bones of worthless dreams.

“We were each other’s firsts, and I thought he loved me too.” I swallowed, reliving what we had shared together and then the collapse of everything. “He was in love, but not with me.”

I went silent, getting lost in the trail of pitiless memories. And regrets. That’s what destroyed me the most. The night everything changed was because I couldn’t handle the grief anymore. My pain had lashed out, anguish painting the walls, anger in shredded pieces on the floor.

And now I would be paying for it for the rest of my life.

“I’m sorry,” Ash replied, returning to his back and staring at the ceiling. “Whoever he is, can I say, he’s an idiot.”

“I wish it were the case.” How easy it would be if it was so simple. But he wasn’t. He was a good person. He just didn’t love me, and I still couldn’t deal with it. I would never be the one he wanted—the bed he crawled into at night.

Not wanting to fall down that rabbit hole too far, I turned back to Ash. “You spoke of revenge?” I licked my lips. “The person you lost… you were in love?”

Ash was quiet for so long, I wanted to take it back, stepping too far over the invisible line I didn’t see.

“Persons,” he said low. “There were two.”

“Two?” My brows shot up. Fae were open to all of that, but I had never thought about being with more than one person. I didn’t want anyone to be okay with sharing me, and I was too jealous to share anyone I loved.

“A man and woman. That surprise you?”

“No.” I swallowed, though I think it did a little. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to share him. Though I now understood his blend of women and men in the brothel. “You’re doing this all for them?”