Page 126 of Ruin My Life
His voice spikes—not at me, but at the past.
At himself. At everything he’s tried and failed to carry.
His thumb brushes my cheek like he’s memorizing me.
Like he’s already preparing to lose me.
“Please,” he whispers. “Don’t let me keep walking this road where all the paths lead to you. Push me away. Call me your enemy. Hate me. Just—just don’t let them use you against me too.”
I try to speak. But I feel winded. Like he’s confessed something I wasn’t ready to hear.
Because I know what this is.
This isn’t control. This isn’t obsession.
This islove, the kind born from ruin.
He’s telling me he’d rather lose me than be the reason I get hurt. And I hate how badly I want to wrap my arms around him and make him break that promise.
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I don’t want to.”
Pain flashes through his eyes. Real and raw and so utterly human.
“Don’t you see how much I’ve already ruined your life?” he asks, shaking his head like he can’t understand me. “Why would you ever wantmore?”
I open my mouth.
But I don’t have an answer. Not one that makes any sense to me anyway.
And while I’d usually brush him off with something guarded and sarcastic, the truth slips out on its own—soft and unplanned.
“I wish I knew the answer to that.”
Part of me already knows how this ends. One of us will betray the other.
Damon will choose to keep the identity of my sister’s killer a secret.
I’ll use his feelings—his obsession—as leverage. I’ll find a way to make him break.
There’s no version of this where it doesn’t end in gunfire and ash.
So why can’t I just play the role I planned when I stepped out here? Why am I standing here now, choking on words I can’t seem to say—words that might salvage whatever this isafterI burn it all to the ground?
Because... I don’t want to lose him either.
His eyes flood into mine, dark and stormy, asking every question I’m not ready to answer. He shakes his head like he’s trying to pull himself free of me.
But he can’t.
“Fuck. Brie... why don’t you ever listen to me?”
I don’t get the chance to respond before his mouth crashes onto mine.
He tastes like whiskey and mint—a burn and a balm in the same breath.
His hand knots into my hair while the other drags down my spine, pulling me against him until our bodies mold together, like they’ve done this a hundred times.
It should feel wrong. Itshould.
