Page 105 of Starstruck

His face stayed down, barely acknowledging me as the one wordthat had the power to make my heart cave in and suffocate in the wreckage left his mouth.

“Yes.”

chapter thirty four

a collision of stars

Ididn’t move until I heard the door to his room close, the soft click echoing through the hallways like a trigger. My breath hitched, and before I could stop myself, I was out of my room, charging down the hallway after him, the resolve building in my chest.

This couldn’t wait. Not anymore. I needed answers. I needed him to be honest with me, even if it hurt.

I stood outside his door for a moment, my hand hovering over the handle, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. I couldn’t keep pretending that this ache inside me wasn’t growing, that the space I’d carved out for him in my mind wasn’t consuming me.

With a sharp breath, I knocked.

And I waited.

I think I went through every stage of grief in the time he told mehe was going home until now, but in truth, my body felt stuck between denial and anger. I felt my blood boil at the same time I felt tears pricking my lash line. My skin grew hot, and at the same time, cold tears wet my cheeks.

I had time to run through all those feelings again whilst waiting forhim to open the door, and when I couldn’t hear anything from behind it, I twisted the handle, walking in without a care.

I found him on his bed, head in his hands, a shrunken version of the boy I’d existed around for weeks. The sight of him like that—so small, so defeated—sent a wave of something sharp and aching through me.

For a moment, I hesitated in the doorway, feeling like I was intruding on something I wasn’t supposed to witness. But then I stepped in, slowly, my heart still pounding, and the floorboards creaked beneath my weight.

He didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge me.

“Tristan,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. My voice cracked, betraying the knot that had been lodged in my throat since dinner.

Still, nothing.

I took another step forward, my pulse quickening, before stopping just shy of his bed. The tension in the room was thick, like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting for someone to speak, to break whatever spell had settled between us.

“When were you gonna tell me?” I asked, hating the way voice cracked.

Slowly, he lifted his head, his eyes dark and distant, shadows castacross his face. That heaviness I felt before was there, clear as day, laying low beneath his skin. His jaw tightened, like he was fighting to keep something in, but then his head rolled back, guilt masking his face as his eyes fell back on me.“Can I explain?”

My heart screamed at me to whisper the word ‘yes’, but the coldanger that held me frozen in place and refused to let me.

So I spat, “I don’t want to know what’s happened, Tristan, I justwant to know why you thought you couldn’t tell me.” The lump in my throat grew. “Why?” I asked, taking a step closer. “Why are you pushing me away?”

He let out a harsh breath, standing up from his bed and rubbing hisface with his hands, and when he finally looked at me again, his eyes were filled with something I couldn’t quite name—fear, maybe, or guilt. Maybe both. “Because I made a promise to you, Gold’s.” His heavy breath hit my face as he moved closer, melting some of that anger. “I promised to keep your firsts safe. I swore it.”

I threw my hands in the air, catching some of the November breezefrom the cracked open windows. “And what does that have to do with—”

“I wasn’t going to let the first time your heart broke be because ofme.” I think I felt my heart crack down the center, as I listened to the cracks in his voice. “And telling you… telling you everything I needed to before you could find out… I knew your heart wouldn’t survive it.”

“You don’t get to decide that.” I shook my head, my eyes stinging asthey searched his. “You don’t know—”

“I’m going back to London,” he blurted, his voice barely above awhisper, as if saying it out loud cost him something. The corners of my eyes stung with tears, the silhouette of Tristan becoming blurry as he stepped forward and tried to reach for me. “I wanted to tell you, Gold’s. Believe me, I did but—”

“But what?” I stepped back, throwing my hands up aimlessly. “Butyou wanted to lead me on, telling me your plans had changed, only for you to blurt out in front of my family, after I’d been so open about how I felt about you that, oh wait, no, you actuallyareleaving, and all of this was just a waste?”

“No, I promise, it wasn’t like that—”

“Then what was it like?”

Tristan sighed as he looked at me, those brown pools drinking upevery part of me.And I’m pretty sure even the candle flames stopped swaying whenhis mouth fell open.

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