Page 68 of The Lies We Tell Ourselves

It was suffocating.

I was like a soldier on the front line, not knowing if these were my final moments.

Memories of last night flicked through my mind, a broken movie montage that didn’t make sense. It didn’t happen to me, did it? Dillon’s broken voice was the only thing I could focus on as the images in my head faded into the fog.

“I never meant for this to happen.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What did you do?” I rolled over, sat up, and shuffled in his bed until my back rested against the headboard. Naked apart from boxers—his—I felt too exposed, so I pulled the sheet up and tucked it under my arms. “Dillon?” My fractured voice was whisper soft, but his head whipped up like I’d struck him. Tears shimmered and clung to his lashes as oceans of pain raged in the dark depths of his eyes. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

Dillon blinked up at me through unseeing eyes and for once, I was grateful for the distance between us. He sat on his desk chair with his elbows braced on his knees. His chin rested on steepled fingers, and his lips trembled as the first tear fell from his wide eyes. “Just know that I love you, little crow. Always have. Always will.” I love you too. But I didn’t have the strength to give credence to my thoughts.

I’d dreamed about the first time Dillon told me he loved me. I expected to feel the kind of euphoria addicts talk about. I never expected to feel like this—like he was shredding my soul with his bare hands. I tilted my head to the side and waited for him to finish. I could tell there was more he left unsaid. Like an iceberg with hidden depths, he’d only given me a crumb of what lied beneath.

Dillon sat up in his chair with his head tipped back and stared at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell with shallow pants. Fingers carded through his hair until he yanked it hard enough for the strands to break before fisting them in his lap. “That night when I first…” He shook his head and tried again. “I hated you! Hated you so much! Fucking hated you and everything you stood for! And then you turned up here and looked at me with those pale-blue eyes.” He clenched his jaw, and a muscle ticked in his cheek.

I sucked in a sharp inhale that burned my lungs and opened my mouth.

“Don’t. I have to get this out.” I shook as his pain lanced right through me. “You fucking left me. You kissed me, then fucking disappeared.” An inhuman noise tore from his lips and tears flowed down his cheeks like a river. His red-rimmed eyes chipped away at my heart. “Did I mean so fucking little to you that you could just walk away and treat me like I was nothing?”

“No,” I gasped, my hand reaching for him. He flinched even though he was on the other side of the room. “It wasn’t like that.” I licked my lips, tasting the pain of my salty tears. “That’s not what happened?—”

“How would I fucking know?!” He threw himself out of his chair, stalking across his room like a caged beast ready to explode. “YOU. LEFT. ME,” he bellowed. “You left me, and I had no one. I was all alone with my pain.” He punched the wall, his fist going straight through the drywall. “Five fucking years, Jamie.” He moved toward me with blood dripping down his fist and a snarl curling his lips. Eyes that only moments ago looked at me with nothing but seething hate.

“That’s not what happened,” I cried. “You need to listen to me,” I begged. Fear coiled around me as he ripped the sheet off my body and yanked me off the bed. I hit the floor so hard, it forced the air from my lungs.

“Five fucking years, and not a word.” He wrapped my hair around his fist and yanked my head back. His whole body shook, and his rage was suffocating. “How fucking hard was it to pick up a phone and called me? To write me a letter and explain why you fucking broke me?”

“I couldn’t.” I whimpered as he dragged me across the floor. “I wasn’t allowed to.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Reproach flooded his face, and he dropped me like I’d burned him.

“I w-wasn’t allowed to contact you.” I sobbed, curling into the fetal position at his feet. “We were put into witness protection. My dad tried t-to…” The memories of that night hit, and I couldn’t talk. They stole me away from a seething Dillon and pillaged my mind with the darkest moments of my life I’d tried to forget. I was drowning.

“Shit, baby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” The air moved when he fell to his knees. “Jamie, p-please.” I flinched when he touched me, and an agonized sound wrenched from my chest.

“D-Don’t… t-touch m-me.”

“I’m sorry. Fuck! I’m so?—”

“Your words mean nothing to me now,” I whispered. “T-tell me what you meant last night by y-you didn’t m-mean it to go this far.”

Dillon’s frozen face contorted in the most gut-wrenching pain, as if what he was about to say would cost him everything. “It was me.” He crumbled before my eyes. The mountain fell. “I wanted to make you pay for everything you’ve done to me. I told them to hurt you. An eye for an eye.”

“No.” Every word he said landed like a killing blow to my heart. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I didn’t know if I’d survive this, survive him and the way he broke us. I’d lost so much already, and his betrayal was like the final nail in my coffin.

I didn’t know how I did it, but I tied my shattered pieces back together and threw on the first clothes I found discarded on the floor. I was shaking so violently I could barely see and crawled to the door, my heart nothing but scattered ashes on the floor. My hand latched on to the handle, and I hauled myself up. My legs buckled, too weak to hold me up.

“JAMIE!” he roared as I fell through the door and crashed into the one across the hallway. “COME BACK!”

“No,” I cried as the maelstrom of my emotions pulled me under and started to run as the world fractured around me. His pounding footfalls followed me, but I refused to look back.

“Jamie, come back…”

I tripped over my bare feet, knees crashing to the ground. Pain lanced through me as I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I couldn’t be near him. I couldn’t look at him anymore. Not when all I saw were broken dreams and bleeding hearts.

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