Page 77 of Of Withering Dreams
“What are you saying, Kade?”
“I love you as my best friend.And more.”
My heart dropped into my gut, panic tunneling into its vacancy.
“No.”
“No?” His arm slipped from me, and he sat up, resting his arms on bent knees. I rolled on my back, gnawing on the inside of my cheek.
“After the Dor?—”
“I don’t care about the bleeding Dormancy,” he growled, shoving his fingers through his messy hair. “I care about you. I love you. I think I have for a long time. Just to be clear—more than just my friend.”
“Kade … I don’t know what to say.” My pulse thumped clumsily as if drowning in a sticky vat of honey. It’s not that I didn’t feel deeply for Kaden, but I wasn’t certain I felt how he needed me to.
He hung his head. “You don’t need to say anything. I can read between the bed sheets.” His words felt like a slap to the face. My brows whipped to my hairline; my mouth dropped open.
“That’s not fair, and you know it,” I snapped, sitting up while clutching said sheets to my breasts, throwing my feet over the side of the mattress.
He hoisted himself off the bed, huffing, and burning indignation bubbled at the back of my skull as I watched him. We’d shared something significant. I gave myself to him. Trusted him with my body. My vulnerability.
Plucking his breeches from the floor, he jabbed his legs into them. He didn’t bother tying them, and despite my growing ire, my mouth watered at the sight of them dipping low on his hips.
Stop.I wrapped my arms around myself in frustrated confusion, tucking my lips between my teeth. Chastising my tactless desires. I was self-centered. I’d hurt my best friend.
He bent to pick up his tunic, handing it to me as he stared past me and out to the unyielding sea. I slipped the tunic over my body as I stood before him, my center still sore from what we’d shared. The embarrassing burn of tears threatened me, and I inhaled deeply through my nose. Refusing to give in to the emotion.
The wrinkled hem rustled against my knees as I reached for him, my palm brushing over the strained muscles of his biceps.
His jaw tensed, and he cursed under his breath. “I know. But I don’t want to feel this way—I don’t want any of it. I knew what I was doing when we started this. I’ve always known that I’d rip my heart out just to be with you … if even for a moment. That is on me, not you.”
He turned to leave, but I slid my hand to his wrist, holding firm. “Kaden, please. I care about you; I need you. You’re my best friend—one of the most important people in my life. But I don’t know if I can promise anything more than what we have now. Even if … even if we remember after we wake up.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” he murmured, still facing the door.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
He scoffed.
“Kaden, I don’t …” I choked on the words. “My mind and feelings are my own—no matter how muddled. I thought we were on the same page with being intimate.”
He whipped his focus back to me, his gaze burning into mine. “We were—until we weren’t. Like I said, that’s my fault.” He shifted his eyes to the rumpled bedsheets and then back to me. “I made our bed. Laid in it. And now we can end with that. Thank the Ancients—wherever the fuck they are—I won’t remember any of this.”
I flinched, crushing the fingers of my free hand into my palm to steady myself. His words were a bitter arrow, and it had found its mark right between my ribs. He scrubbed his free hand over his chest as if he, too, had been stabbed, the skin turning pink.
“This—all this—meant a great deal to me.Youmean more to me than you’ll ever know. Please hear me. I’m just trying to be as honest as possible, and I’m sorry. I … I never meant to hurt you.”
“You never do.” He tugged his wrist away from my grip and strode toward the door. My aching heart lurched, hurtling to the black stone beneath my feet. The door slammed behind him, rattling in its frame—the metallic clang echoing through my hollow bones.
I had wanted to break—into something new.
Transformed.
My body wilted, a strangled cry ripping from my throat as I gasped for air.
It was no use blaming the Fates. This wasmydoing. I deserved to weep under the crushing consequences of my choices.
I’d gotten what I wanted.
