Page 138 of Ruined Vows

Her words slam me in the stomach harder than any kick to the ribs. Of course she didn’t pick me. All of a sudden, I’m the little kid back at daycare when no one came to pick him up.

She keeps going. “I’ve got a family and my little box and all the wealth in the world. It was…” She shakes her head helplessly, “…nice to cosplay being poor with you for a little while. But I’m ready to go back to being a princess. You could never provide the sort of life I’m accustomed to.”

“And he can? The bastard that put me in here? You know he planted all that shit they supposedly got on me. You know that means he’s the?—”

“Shut up! For once in your goddamned life, could you just shut up?” She looks around as if anyone could overhear us in the empty fucking concrete room.

I hold up my hands to indicate I’m done talking.

Because I am. If she’s seriously pulling this bullshit, after everything we had… I just have one last question.

“Why’d you take me to Colorado, then? What was Denver about?”

Her brow drops. “Just because I don’t want to be with you doesn’t mean I want to see you go through life broken. I wanted that to be my last parting gift to you.”

Which just makes me start to fucking cry as if those goddamned mushrooms connected to some well deep down inside me, and now that the spring has sprung a leak, I can’t put the cap back on.

“You’re a good man, Isaak Luther, and I hope you have a wonderful life.” She presses her hand briefly to the glass. “It just can’t be with me.”

She retracts her hand before I can even raise mine.

“You love the money that much?” I wipe my nose with my forearm and glare up at her.

I can’t help but take the shot because I don’t understand. I was ready to tell this woman Ilovedher. I was ready to give her the world, to giveupmy world, to change everything if need be.

But she’s not willing to do the same.

“That’s not fair,” she whispers.

“Oh, it’s not?”

When I look up, tears are brimming in her eyes. I feel like such an asshole, bringing her to tears, even if there’s satisfaction in knowing that I at least still have enough hold on her to wound her at all.

“Some things are more important than money,” she says. “You taught me that.”

“Oh yeah? So what’s more important than money? ’Cause it’s obviously not me.”

“No,” she says, pounding another nail into my heart. “It’s not you. It’s my family. They may be awful, but they’re all I’ve got. I want to make amends with my mother. I’ll fit into the community now, and my father will be proud of me. Giving them a grandchild could really bring us all together?—”

She pauses, maybe at the gutted look I can feel on my face.

Children.

She’s going to have kids with that little dick-twister of a man. The entire future I saw so solidly just a few days ago is slipping away like sand in a desert storm.

She’s gone before I even had hold of her.

She doesn’t want you.

She’s giving you back.

No one ever wants you.

It’s such a gut-dropping shock. Every time.

I slam my hand against the glass where hers had been so daintily placed.

“Fuck you for making me hope!” I shout and pound the glass again. “Fuck you for making me think we had a future!”

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