Page 47 of Until Forever Falls

Brooks doesn’t answer, letting me turn back to the cliffside, my fists curled so tight my nails could draw blood. The ocean sprawls below, all soft shimmer and open arms, like it hasn’t swallowed far worse things than me. The storm isn’t out there—it’s inside, clawing up my ribs, gnashing its teeth against my throat, begging to be let loose.

“I’m sorry, Dylan.”

“You’re sorry? Yeah, well, I’ve had plenty of time to choke it down.”

“Stop,” Brooks says, voice taut with regret. “I don’t mean just that. I’m sorry for leaving you alone in it. I should’ve been there. You were the most important person in my life, and I convinced myself that leaving was protecting you.” His throat bobs, and when he speaks again, it’s quieter. “That staying away was what you needed.”

His words settle in, fueling the fire already licking at my insides. I’m burning alive, heat riots in my veins, an untamed, vicious thing that refuses to stay ignored.Protecting me?

I snap toward him. “Are you actually standing there saying that to me? Like it’s supposed to mean something?”

Brooks recoils, momentary guilt flashing across his face, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. I close the gap between us, every restrained, suffocated, gut wrenching emotion I’ve kept hidden flooding to the surface. “Do you have any idea what you fucking did to me? What you left me with?”

“I—”

“Don’t,” The word rips from my throat. “Spare me the bullshit. Do you even hear yourself? You’re talking to a ghost, Brooks. I trusted you once. And it fucking ruined me. So don’t stand there and pretend I owe you anything.”

His eyes drag over me like he’s trying to pick apart the damage. As if he doesn’t already know, like he didn’t fucking cause it. Maybe he sees the fury splintered beneath my skin, the way it’s festered into something unforgiving. Or maybe he just feels it, the repercussions of his decisions looking back at him.

His hand lifts, hovering—because he knows I should rip away. But I don’t. Not yet. His fingers graze my cheek, the touch a fucking contradiction—too cold against the inferno pulsing beneath my skin. It teeters on the edge of soothing. Then, it fucking sears like a cigarette crushed into bare skin.

I finally manage to pull away, the absence of him both a mercy and an open wound. My breath snags, throat tightens, and I’m shaking my head before I even realize. “You don’t get to do that.”

My words cut, deep enough that I can see the moment they sink into flesh. He clenches his teeth, stiffens, but doesn’t give me the satisfaction of a response. He just bears it, lets it stew in his silence. And I should hate him—I want to—but all I see is the boy I once loved so catastrophically it shattered me. The truth doesn’t bleed from my mouth—it pours.

“You looked me in the eyes and promised me you’d be there. You fucking promised.” The break in him is quick but vicious, a glimpse of ruin before he locks it away.

“And then you left me alone in the wreckage,” I say, my voice catching like a blade to the throat. “You didn’t even have the fucking decency to look me in the eye when you decided I wasn’t worth it. I had to crawl to you—beg for answers, only for you to cut me down where I stood, like I never fucking mattered.”

“It nearly fucking killed me” he says, his voice stripped down to nothing. “I thought—” He pauses, like he can’t bear to finish. “I thought you deserved more than what I could give you. It wasn’t that simple.”

I let out a dry, brittle laugh. “What Ineededwas you, Brooks. Not some fucked up version of nobility. Just you. But you didn’t care enough to stay, did you?”

He doesn’t argue. Just stands there, spine bowed under the weight of my words.

“Sure, I may have ran from Rockport. But you? You left me to fucking drown first. You let me break, let me bleed outalone. Not a call. Not a text. You knew, and you just fucking watched.”

I spin on my heel, each step away a battle, dragging the corpse of what we were behind me. “I screamed for you, Brooks. Cried for you. You don’t get to be sorry now.”

When I glance over my shoulder, the sight nearly takes me to my knees. His face is streaked with tears, and for the first time, I see it. What’s left of him. Something torn apart and haphazardly stitched back together. “If I could go back, Dylan, I would tear myself open before I ever let you go. But I can’t. I can’t fucking change any of it.”

He doesn’t reach for me this time. Just moves toward the truck with desperation. The passenger door creaks open. An invitation. A surrender. I climb in, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ache, the taste of iron thick on my tongue. The stillness between us is suffocating. Choking. A gaping wound neither of us dares to touch.

Brooks doesn’t meet my eyes when we arrive back at The Drift. Doesn’t speak when he steadies me, his hands caught between holding on and letting go. He already knows it’s too late, but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want him to do it anyway. To grip my waist, to drag me back into something that doesn’t exist anymore, and feel anything other than this all consuming pain.

The door to my room clicks shut behind me, and the moment it does, my ribs splinter, my chest caves in, and I finally let myself break.

Because today, I let things slip free that I never thought I’d say. I cracked myself open and let the mess spill out. I meant every single word—every razor-sharp, venom-laced syllable. But now, I see the truth. The heat of my anger burned everything in its path—except the one thing that truly deserved to go up in flames.

Me.

17

Dylan

Then

“There’s no point in fighting, Dylan. No one will give a damn what comes out of your mouth. Not a single soul. Why would they? Your mom’s a worthless drunk, nothing but a used up whore who can’t keep her shit together. You really think anyone’s gonna waste their time listening to you? You’re nothing to them. Just noise. A problem waiting to be ignored.”

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