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I wasn’t sure I could actually feel worse, and I was trying like hell to find the hatred and annoyance again but when you’re both in physical and emotional pain it’s fucking harder than attempting to collect water with your hands.

"Ace?”

"Yeah?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t have breakfast with you.”

I knew what she meant.

The knife inched into my chest just a bit further and twisted to the right, the left. “I’m fasting anyway.”

"Good.” A tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away. “That’s good.”

No. It was lonely.

It was terrible.

It was my future. “Right,” I nodded toward the door. “You should go but before you do I want you to do me a favor.”

"What?”

“Don’t look so worried.” I forced a smile that felt brittle and full of a choking loss I hadn’t even begun to realize yet. “When you walk down your aisle, my gift to you is this. Close your eyes. When you take those steps imagine him at the end of the aisle, not me. When you’re told to say your vows think of his voice, when you’re angry you can say you wish it was him, and in the end, when I kiss you, believe the lie that it is. Don’t believe in the sweet nightmare that we have—cling to the beloved dream.” I choked the last part out. “It’s okay—to cling to him instead of me.”

The final words burned when they fell from my lips.

And I felt it—in the moment.

The shield creaked back into place.

The walls were once again erected.

The pain she’d caused was nothing more than a few scars against the brick.

Feelings were for the weak.

My only job was to stand by her side.

And live the nightmare so she could live her dream.

18

RAVEN

The One where you kiss the wrong groom while waiting for the right one.

"It should have been him.” I didn’t say the words out loud, but I knew Ace heard them anyway. With him, I realized, I didn’t need all the words. As much as he made fun of me for it, he knew just as much with the unbearable heaviness of silence.

I could see the shift in Ace’s stance like whatever we’d shared over the last two days was gone, completely drained from his soul and in its place the devil I always knew.

The one I needed when I was in pain.

The one I probably needed now in order to get through this.

If he said one more thing that was sweet, one more thing that made me feel undone, I would crack.

It was something I couldn’t afford to do.

"I’ll pretend it’s someone else if you do,” he whispered with a smirk. “Believe me when I say I could be getting laid right now instead of…” He shrugged. “Saying I do.”