Page 23 of Exiled

“Is. Look at me.”

I shake my head. I can’t. Don’t. Won’t.

He touches my chin, but I resist. Pull away. Feel his fingers slide across my cheek, brushing away tears. “Isabel de la Vega. Look at me now, please.”

I have to, the way he says it. The whip and crack of command in his voice is inexorable. “What, Logan?”

“I hate the hooks he has in you. The way he’s brainwashed you.”

“It’s addiction, Logan. Pure and simple.”

“Addiction can be broken.”

“He’s not a substance I can merely stop buying. I can’t just suffer the withdrawals, or go to rehab, or a clinic. I can’t just quit him. It’s not that simple. He holds my past. Heismy past. I hate it, too, the way he affects me. The way I can’t seem to...not. No matter how badly I want to, no matter how hard I try.”

“What was it this time?”

“Jakob.”

“So what I told you, you already knew?”

“Some of it. I confronted him about the name on my discharge papers. And he told me about Jakob. But he told it as if it were someone else. Not him. The last thing he said to me was that Jakob Kasparek does not exist anymore. That his name was Caleb. But then... he... he showed me that Jakobdoesexist. Almost as a separate person within him, but there, nonetheless.”

“Excuse me if that doesn’t move me.”

“I’m not expecting it to.” I wipe at my face. “I don’t expect... anything from you. Except a good-bye, perhaps.”

“No, Isabel. No. Not that. Never that.”

“Why? How?”

“Love is not so weak as that, Isabel. At least mine isn’t.”

“But mine is, apparently.”

“I didn’t say so,” Logan says.

“You didn’t have to.” I finally look at him of my own volition. It is so hard, nearly impossible, and painful. To see the angerand the pain directed at me... it is nearly too much to bear. “I hate myself for it, Logan. Truly, I do. The moment he left, I—I wanted to undo it.”

What I don’t tell him, what I don’t even allow myself to fully think, is that there is a seed of doubt buried deep within me. Now that I’ve seen such a secret, vulnerable,humanside of you, I cannot help but wonder what else there is within you, that no one else has ever seen. I wonder. I doubt myself. I doubt everything.

And that doubt is murderous. Treacherous.

But I do not doubt Logan. I do not doubt my feelings for him.

I twist to face him. Take his hands in mine. Meet his eyes. “Logan, please... forgive me. If you can. I don’t know what this means for us, for the future, but... I do love you. I hope you don’t doubt that.”

“It’s hard not to. I want to believe that if you loved me enough, you wouldn’t let anything come between us. But then I tell myself that I’m not in your shoes. I can’t understand or fathom what you’ve been through. But what I keep coming back to is... this isn’t the first time you’ve gone back to him after promising you were done. It’s not even the second. And—he’s still out there. He still considers you his property, and he’ll come for you. And I—I can’t help being afraid, especially now, that you might just choose him over me if it came down to it.” He touches his lips to my knuckles, all ten, one at a time, slowly. “So, yes. I forgive you. Of course I do. But it will take time. I just... I need time. Stay here with me. Just be with me. And give me time to process it all.”

“I swear I—”

“Don’t. No promises, Isabel. You can’t make any promises to me, not about Caleb.”

He’s right, and I know it. I know it, and I hate it.

I cry, and he doesn’t shush me. Doesn’t tell me to stop. Doesn’t tell me it’s okay. It’s not, and we both know it. But he does hold me. He wraps his arms around me, pulls me against his chest, and lets me cry.

Sometimes it’s all there is, to cry and know it’s not okay.