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He was telling me to go? He was giving me permission to walk away from him? To my surprise, he gave me a pained smile.
“I meant it when I said I would endeavour to do better.” I curled my toes into the honeysuckle, but for once the earth didn’t soothe me. A sob escaped and I couldn’t stop the tears falling.This isn’t happening.I felt myself falling, off the edge and into insanity, alone.
“Don’t cry, Lo.” He pulled me into his arms and I let him, allowing myself his touch just one last time. “Please, don’t cry. Not over me.” His arms wrapped around me, his nose buried in my hair as he breathed me in, his fingers tracing over the nape of my neck. I inhaled his scent, committing it to memory. I would never forget it. As long as I lived I would never, ever forget it. “I love?—”
“Don’t. Please don’t. You’ll kill me, Alfie,” I sobbed, my tears soaking his shirt. I could hear his heart beating slowly, barely there.
“You have to go, Lola.” His voice was gentle as he held me, but any strength I’d had had dissipated in the face of his decency. I hated my weakness, hated that the very person that had hurt me was the only thing that could take that pain away.
“I can’t.” My feet wouldn’t move. My hands wouldn’t unclench from his shirt. My body refused to separate itself from something it had come to need. With a shuddering breath, Alfie pulled back, his hands cupping my face, stroking my cheek, soothing me with the same hands that had broken me.
“It’s going to be okay. Breathe, baby.” His words came softly, whispered only for me. I let out a sob and leaned into his touch, soaking it in before it was gone forever.
I forced myself to look at him, to absorb every detail, from his dark hair, his stern brow, to those high cheekbones that could cut glass. The soft mouth and porcelain skin and that grey gaze that held so many secrets that I would never, ever know.
I turned my face down, kissing his palm, and when I opened my eyes, something snagged my attention, something so out of place. There, where the hem of one trouser leg had risen slightly above his shoe, I saw the hint of a blue sock so dark it was almost black, but it wasn’t. It was blue.
Alfie…
I whimpered and that was all I had time for before his lips found mine. I sank into his kiss, which I was certain this time would kill me. It was agony. Painful, bright, and I would do it all again. Every single moment, even if it would always lead me back to this pain, I would do it all again. I would never regret him. Not ever.
I held onto him for dear life and I was grateful, so grateful he had the strength to pull away, because I didn’t. My showgirl’s shoes had broken. She had forgotten her lines and was crying alone on stage in an empty theatre. My lover pressed his forehead to mine, holding me for the last time.
I felt when it was time, when it was truly over. The cord between us pulled taut and finally snapped as he shifted back, his eyes finding mine as he committed me to memory.
“Go, O’Connell.” I couldn’t move. I couldn’t. A strangled sob escaped me as I begged him silently to help me. He understood what I needed. In so many ways, he had always known me better than I knew myself. His hands dropped to my upper arms, and with all the strength he had, he gave me the gentlest push away from him. “Go.”
I closed my eyes first. I wouldn’t be able to turn away if I could still see him. With the final image of him imprinted on my brain, I turned away, grabbed my clutch from the table, and I ran.
I couldn’t feel my legs and I don’t know how they held me up. I ran in my bare feet, through the grass, up the broken steps and towards Harrington House. All the while every cell in my body screamed at me to turn back.
Alfie…
I had let him go. This broken man that I couldn’t save, this twisted soul that would have done so much damage to me had I kept him.
My Alfie.
I ran away from him into the night and towards my future—a future I had dreamed of my whole life. A future that, one day, I would be excited for, but for tonight I was breaking. The tears never stopped as my feet pounded the earth. My soul split down the middle as I left its mate behind, leaving me holding tears, broken dreams, and the shattered remains of my own bleeding heart.
Epilogue
ALFIE.
Ilistened to her cry as she left my sight. Such small, pitiful sounds. Pain that I wouldn’t have caused her for anything, and yet I had. As a result of my own selfishness, I’d hurt her. All this time, and I still hadn’t changed.
I watched her go until the final swish of the blue dress I had so painstakingly chosen disappeared into the trees. I closed my eyes then, not wanting to look at a world that didn’t have her in it.
I could hear the moon laughing at me. The night had become so still around me that even the owls and the insects didn’t dare make a sound. The night sat in respectful silence, allowing me this time to mourn, to die, to settle back into my old shell. I eased into that skin, donning my hair shirt with new crimes added to my record.
You have been charged with committing most egregious acts and having an insidious nature. How do you plead?Guilty. Guilty as sin.
I forced my eyes open, no point in delaying the inevitable. The garden was dead without her. The lifeless pregnancy test lay on the table where she left it.
Negative.
Relief. That had been my immediate reaction, though fear had crawled up my throat soon after. Fear at the inevitable end. Her shoes lay discarded by her chair and I knelt, scooping them up. They were still warm inside and I knew I would keep them for the rest of my life. I placed them with care on the table next to the small velvet box.
Stupid. I had been so stupid. Offering her that ring, like it would change anything. Like I would ever get to keep her. ‘Do you even want to marry me, Alfie?’ More than I wanted air. That’s what I’d wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. They’d gotten stuck, clogged up with my devious mistruths. I placed the box in my pocket. I would keep that forever too.