Page 99 of A Taste Of Darkness

Maybe he wasn’t even with his family.

Stop.

No.

No, Milo wasn’t like that. He was?—

10:00.

The door to the apartment swung open.

With long, fast strides, Milo made his way over to me.

Tears of relief streamed down my face when he picked me up and his lips came crashing down on mine, kissing me deeply, pouring every ounce of the pieces of his heart that belonged to me into it.

My arms encircled his neck, holding him tightly.

My heart was pounding again, but it was hurting at the same time.

How dare he do this to me? After everything, after every word he said, showing me how I meant something to him… how could he put me through this pain?

“I’m sorry,” he spoke quietly, holding me tighter.

I remained quiet, not knowing how to respond to an empty apology.

“I love you,” he whispered, and I closed my eyes as I shook my head at his confession.

“You don’t.” I pulled away from him, stepping back. “If you loved me, Milo, you would’ve told me what you were doing and wouldn’t have left me here worrying about you.”

His eyes filled with panic.

“If you loved me, you would’ve said goodbye. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left in the first place. And if you loved me and you really had to do this, then you would’ve taken me with you.”

Milo’s shoulder fell, his face too. Defeat was edged into his features, and there was something fearful in his eyes. He looked like a whole different person.

“I didn’t say goodbye because I love you,” he said. “Because saying goodbye marks an ending I wasn’t ready to get near yet. It would’ve been a goodbye that I honestly wasn’t even sure was needed. I left because I love you. Because if I stayed, neither of us would still be alive. And I didn’t take you with me because I fucking love you, Sterlie Adams. If I took you with me, I’d have gotten careless, don’t you get that? If I’d taken you with me, the moment someone looked at you, I would’ve shot them which would’ve only made everything worse. And I didn’t want to take your freedom away. If you came with me and we both somehow survived, there’d be no way you could ever be free again.” He stepped forward and cradled my face with his hands. I let him. “I did this for you. Your life is worth so much more than mine, Sterlie. Nobody would care if I died, but you…”

My head shook without my consent. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s the?—”

“No,” I cut him off. “No, Milo. Your life is not worth less than mine. You don’t get to say that. And all of you don’t get to claim this as a sacrifice of some sort. Everyone keeps telling me that you had to do this for me, to save me, or whatever. But that’s not fair! I’m sorry you were born into that kind of family, and I’m so endlessly sorry that you can’t just run away from it. But that doesn’t make going back there to ensure my safety a sacrifice. I didn’t fuck that up, your family did.”

Once again, I stepped away from him, bringing more distance between us than before. “You knew this was going to happen! You knew they were going to find you eventually, and I don’t care how they found you and that it was a mistake or whatever. You put yourself in this position. You had the choice to stay away and hide somewhere where they wouldn’t have found you. But you chose to stay around me. This whole issue was built upon me when I didn’t even do anything! It’s not my fault you saved me that day, and I’m not responsible for the choices you made. I keep getting told that your family is going after me because they want you, and that’s not my fault. Saying you’re doing this for me makes me feel like all of this is my fault. That’s not fair.

“And frankly, it’s quite unfair how you claim that you choose to love me and make me fall for you, only to disappear! It’s not fucking fair!” I sobbed. “You didn’t even ask me if maybe I wanted to be with you. You never asked me if I would take the risk. I’m not stupid, Milo; I knew that if you talked to your family and they didn’t kill you, they wouldn’t let you leave again. So maybe if you asked, I would’ve told you that I’d move here for you and that I’d give up everything to stay with you. Maybe I was ready to die for you, Milo. But you didn’t even ask!”

His head tilted sideways, something frustrating gleaming in his eyes. He didn’t try to step closer this time. “This is why I came?—"

“He had higher chances of making it out alive without you, Sterlie,” Dahlia interrupted, and for a moment I wanted to yell at her for interrupting, but it wouldn’t have changed anything either way.

“Yes, okay, I got that. But he could’ve at least told me about his plans,” I argued.

If his family already painted me as the villain, and it required Milo to fix something that I supposedly caused, including me for the finale was the least he could’ve done.

Tears rolled down my face, burning on my skin. My heart was aching, begging me to give in and to just be happy that he was alive.

Oh, but there was something heavy inside of me. Something dark that gripped me by my throat, forced me to stay strong.

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