Page 138 of Forget Me Not

Then, as the clock strikes nine, we watch them go, heading off on what will probably be the best honeymoon in Hawaii.

“And there they go,” Reid murmurs quietly, stopping beside me. I stiffen, but I refuse to break. Not yet. Not until I’m alone.

“And there they go.”

Before he can say anything else, I turn and start up the path toward the cottage.

“Stop following me. I need to be alone.”

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” She doesn’t answer. “Nova, get back here.”

She storms up the hill toward the cottage, her shoes in her hand and her hair a wild mess of curls flying around her in the wind. She makes no move to stop and something in me refuses to let her go.

This isn’t going to be how we end it. Not with her fucking hating me.

“Nova,” I bite, thankful I keep the panic in my chest well-masked behind the irritation coiling through me.

“I heard you say you couldn’t wait to get out of here,” she grits and my gut tightens.

“Nova, listen—”

“No!” She whirls on me, spinning to face me so fast she almost stumbles over. “You don’t get to pull me in and then push me back out. Like I mean nothing to you. Don’t pretend to care now.”

“Is that what you think? That I don’t care?”

“You’re so deadset on leaving, right?” she counters, eyes shining in the moonlight above. “Why would you?”

When I don’t say anything, she nods, like she’s got it all figured out.

She thinks this is hurting her?

It’s fucking gutting me.

“I told Manto I bet he was ready to get out of here.”

She pauses, but only for a split second.

“It doesn’t matter. We both knew this wasn’t going to end well.”

“Nova—”

“Maybe you should go now.” Her voice is so quiet, I can barely hear it over the waves crashing against the rocks below the cottage.

I don’t have anything to say to that. Not when she stares at me, waiting for me to argue and not when she shakes her head in defeat. She turns, though, and the threat that I may never get to see her again looms overhead and I just . . . snap.

“You want to know why I stayed on this fucking island?” I ground out, my chest feeling like it’s made of crumbling stone. “Why I can’t just walk away?”

Nova freezes, slowly turning to face me, her expression filled with tears and hurt.

“Four years ago, I pulled a girl out of the Mississippi, and I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.”

The silence between us is hazardous. Dangerous. Neither of us moves and I don’t think either of us forms a solid thought between the rush of the electricity flowing between us.

Fuck . . . I step closer and she presses herself back against the door of the cottage.

“I didn’t know, at first. Not until I put it together.” I can’t describe how hard it is to get those words out around the lump in my throat. How badly it feels like I’m clinging to the last breath of oxygen I have left and it rests in her hands.

She could take me out of this world with a blink of her eye. All she’d have to do is say the word.

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