Page 108 of Of Flames and Fallacies

He sighs into my kiss, and I climb closer to him. As I swing my leg over him to straddle his hips, he pushes away from me. I blink in confusion as my eyes meet his.

Something else flickers in his hazel eyes—is that…is thatfear?

“Wait,” he whispers. Tears line his eyes as he twirls a piece of my blonde hair around his finger and tucks it behind my ear, dragging his touch underneath my jaw to tilt my face up toward his. “I just need this last moment of you and I. One last time of us. Tell me you love me…tell me one more time.”

“What? Of course I love you. Why would it be one last time? What is it? What’s wrong?”

A crack splits the dam he has walled up against the emotions hidden behind his eyes. A single tear slips, rolling down his cheek, as his breath hitches.

“You’re scaring me,” I mutter, swiping away his tear with a finger.

His voice cracks in pain. “I’ve royally fucked up, Kat. I thought I was doing the right thing. But I see now I should have told you this a long time ago. I was just so fucking terrified to lose you again. I put my heart above telling you the truth.”

My stomach curls into a ball of knots, his voice is laced with something grave and dark. Something strained, desperate, and scared. I hold onto my breath, and I slide off him.

“I-I don’t know how to say this.” He shakes his head. “Can you promise to listen to me until I’m done?”

“What is it?” I demand.

“I need you to promise me to listen until I explain everything. Please—”

“Just get out with it.” My skin prickles in anticipation.

Another tear slips from his eyes. He watches me with pinched brows, blinking slowly as if we’re saying goodbye forever. Dipping his head in defeat, he squeezes his eyes shut, as if he can’t bear to look at me any longer. “I’m…engaged.”

My world stops turning. The air is sucked out of the room, and my vision spins. Every breath is a shard of glass tearing deeper into my heart. Stunned as if he slapped me, I mutter, “You’re joking.”

Maybe I hadn’t heard him right. Maybe this is only another sick, awful dream. I shake my head, as if it’ll clear my ears and I’ll process what he actually said. Shaking my head as if it may shake me awake, and I’ll be in another time and place. Where I’m not here. The motion of my head quickens to a furious speed as his words settle on me like fallen ash. I blink through the disbelief and surging emotions threatening to drown me.

My voice pitches higher through my tight throat. “You’re joking.” I repeat. Gripping his arm, I shake him, desperate for him to look up at me. “Tell me you’re joking, Cole!”

He shakes his head, still unable to look me in the eye.

“Since when?” I croak.

He sinks forward, elbows on his knees as he buries his face into his hands. “Since I thought you were…”

Dead.

He can’t even say the words. But it hangs between us nonetheless. And yet…he couldn’t bother to tell me the first time he saw me? Or the nights thereafter? Rage flares in me wicked hot, burning me from the inside out. My body trembles from the threat of combustion, and I clench my fists to keep myself from exploding.

He sucks in a breath, finally glancing over to me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I tried so many times. I just couldn’t find the right time—”

“The right time would have been before you fucked me. That would have been theright time.” The words are venom on my tongue, each word increasing in hostility and pitching higher.

He tries to reach out to me, and I rip my hand away, finally thawing whatever had frozen me to the spot next to him. I can’t race for the door fast enough.

“Kat, please! Kat, wait!” His voice is edged in desperation. “Let me explain. Please,I love you!”

I swivel toward him, pointing a finger at him as if it’ll still the anger inside me. “No,fuckyou, Cole. How could you keep that from me? Maybe you were right. I don’t know you anymore, either. Because the Cole I knew would have told me. He wouldn’t have lied.”

The words spill out of my trembling mouth. I’m struggling to maintain any semblance of composure. Rage and betrayal roar inside me, drowning out every other thought and feeling.

I rip his mother’s ring from my finger and shove it into his hand. “Here, you’ll probably need this for your fiancée.”

“No, wait!” He’s trying to calm me down, grabbing me by my shoulder. But he can’t save me from this hell. It’s too late. All that’s left to do is burn.

I pull away from his touch. “Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t touch me ever again. Leave me the fuck alone.”

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