Page 124 of Hamartia

“What is wrong?” he asks.

I’d thought about it for hours. The words I’d use. How I’d use them. But nothing felt right, nothing made any of it easier, less devastating.

“Camille is pregnant.”

Nothing happens right away. Like he’s still asleep and I’ve said it to his prone unconscious body. Which, god fucking forgive me, I’d also considered. Packing quietly as he slept and slipping out just so I didn’t have to dothis.

He edges back from me ever so slightly until we’re no longer touching anywhere. It hurts more than I thought it would.

“You are leaving,” he says. Not a question. He’s still looking into my eyes like all the information about what is about to happen to us is in there. “You are going back to her.”

I turn my body fully to face him. “Right now, I have to. I need to talk to her and work this out. I’ve run from this, from her, long enough. She needs me.”

He blinks, some heart-breaking look coming into his eyes. Then he turns them away from me and nods. “I understand. You should go to her.” His voice is frighteningly calm. “This has been fun, Raphael.”

He stands and goes to move away but my hand shoots out, grabbing hold of that too–long sleeve.

“Jae,please,this doesn’t have to be the end of this…us.”

He turns big glittering brown eyes on me. “What do you want from me, Raphael?”

“I don’t know,” I say and immediately regret it.

He gives me a look of disdain, which I deserve, and pulls his sleeve out of my grip and wanders back in the direction of his bedroom.

“Fuck,” I hiss when I’m alone again. I do know. I know what I want from him.

I fly out of the sofa and toward his bedroom, throwing open the door. He’s sitting in the center of the bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, his head resting back against the headboard.

“I do know, I want you. That hasn’t changed, Jaehyun.”

He looks at me, unmoved. “We all want things we cannot have. Now, go home to your girlfriend and be a father to your child. I wish you both happiness.”

He may as well have slapped me in the face. The pain makes my temper flare. My voice is sharp when I stalk closer to the bed and say: “And what about you? What do you want? All that honesty and clarity you offered me at the start, how about you give me some of it now? What doyou want?”

I see him swallow, pale throat drawing my eyes like a moth to a flame. “What does it matter? I cannot have the things I want.”

“It matters to me. And I’m fucking asking you, what do you want, Jaehyun?”

“It changes nothing. You will go home to your girlfriend and raise your child and I will be alone.”

“Being this kind of pathetic doesn’t look good on you, Jae,” I snap.

His eyes go wide with shock.

“Tell me what you fucking want. You act like everything is inevitable, like no matter what happens the outcome is gonna be the same regardless. I’ve told you what I want over and over again, I’ve promised I won’t hurt you, but here you are,stillso fucking scared to put everything out there. To take what you want. Camille being pregnant has nothing to do with us. It changes things, yes, but it doesn’t have to be the end of it. But you need to be honest with me again, now, what do you want? From this, from me. I need you to say it.Clearly.”

He looks fucking tormented, his face pale as snow and his eyes shimmering and huge. I can’t see his hands under the sleeves but I know they’re fists. There’s a war on his face. A whole battlefield ofwhat-ifsandmaybesandI can’t give you thisandwhat does it matterand I want to go to him and shake him the fuck out of it. I’m not breathing as I stand there, between life and death, waiting on him to fucking say something. Call ceasefire on this. Put me out of my misery. When he does speak, his voice is calm like those moments after some earth shattering event.

It tells me the war is already over. Lost.

“This has been enjoyable for us both. Let’s not make it into anything more than that.” He gives me some practiced kind of smile and shuffles his body gracefully off the bed. “I am going to take a long bath, so I will be out of your way while you pack.”

Like it’s a kindness.

And then he’s gone.

He closes the door to his ensuite gently behind him.