Page 107 of Entangled

Who is this new being?

Eventually, my body gives out and my sobs subside. Exhaustion weighing on every part of me, physical and immaterial. I turn my head to the side, staring at the bed where he forced his way into my heart with eyes so swollen that I can barely see. The glint of the ring on my left hand catches my eye and I’m left with one resounding reality.

I hate him. Dead or not. I hate him for showing me what paradise could be and then damning me to hell.

God help Cooper Monroe if I ever see him again.

I’ll leave him as nothing more than ash in my wake.

I force my body up, fighting against the bone-weary exhaustion because I can’t stand to be in this place a second longer. I head to the bathroom and push open the small closet door, tearing my clothes from the rack. Grabbing my suitcase from where it rests below, I start to shove them in without care. And with every piece of clothing I pack, I use the pain inside from every broken word to wrap myself in shining, barbed, brilliant new armor. Armor forged from all of the heartache and fury suffocating me.

And in place of who I was, or who I became, a new creature is born. One who is half as reckless as I once was and more jaded than even my tragic past had ever managed to create. One who is excruciatingly aware of the fact that I am not as mighty as I once believed myself to be.

Yanking the suitcase out into the living space. I reach down for the hidden zipper compartment and pull out all of the poems he wrote me. They rest in my hands like lies and poison and broken things and I want nothing to do with them. Walking over to the bed, I set them neatly in the center, in the exact same spot his note was. And then I take off my ring and leave it dead center on top of them.

I want nothing to remember this place by. If I could erase him from my memory at this moment, I gladly would.

I pull out my phone, calling the local taxi to the house before grabbing my suitcase and marching out the door. When the fresh air hits me in the face, I realize I haven’t been outside in days and that I have no idea where I go from here. My future just vanished between the span of a rising sun and destroyed pages. But I know I can’t go home yet. I’m not ready to face the stark loss of the invulnerable girl I believed myself to be before him and I don’t know enough yet about the person I’ve become without him.

I scroll through my contacts, hesitating for only a second before I press call.

Mac’s rough voice answers on the second ring. “Els?”

It takes me a moment to find my voice, to figure out what words to say to explain this pain. “I need you,” I choke out brokenly.

His voice is instantly alert. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper. “Not anymore. But I’m not ready to come home yet.”

“What do you need?” he asks quietly, and I hear Stef and Kai in the background, asking him what’s wrong, the sound of their voices rising in agitation when he doesn’t respond.

“Let’s start with Berlin.”

Chapter 29

Present Day

I glare at the journal lying on the deck of the boat below me as I’ve been doing for the past hour. After I chucked it down there in a fit of temper upon reading the last page.

Fucking useless. All that time spent reading them, wasted.

Well, I guess not totally wasted. They had allowed me to get to know my mother more intimately than most people ever had, but still, at the end, her journals proved just as mysterious and contradictory as her life had been. Leaving me with no more answers than I’d had at the start. The last journal had ended about a year before she had died with her writing about how she had taken me to the park that day and made a new friend.

Fucking fascinating.

I sigh in defeat and stand, heading back down and picking up the journal resentfully along the way to the cabin. Needing to crawl back into bed and snuggle up in Jace’s arms for a while. To get some much-needed comfort despite the fact that he’s been acting a little weird this past week. I can’t put my finger on it though. It’s not like he’s pulling away at all, if anything, I feel like he’s holding on to me tighter. But that playful light in his eyes has dimmed and I can tell something is on his mind.

I’m guessing it’s the conversation we need to have about what happens after our trip to LA in a little under two weeks. The pressing weight of our time together ticking down without having talked about what our plan for the future is. But that’s going to have to wait until later today… After my surprise for him.

Plus, I just need him to hold me right now.

I drop the journal on the table in the cabin and walk to the bedroom, pushing open the door and walking to the bed on silent feet. My lips twitch up at the sight of him all splayed out in sleep and I pull back the covers. Sliding into bed, I wrap my body around his and lay my head on his chest. The smell of his sea-spring scent making me immediately feel lighter. A moment later I feel him begin to twist under my cheek with movement but I tighten my arms around him and he immediately stills.

He brings his hand up to tug at the bottom of my hair in question, trying to get me to tip my head up and look at him. “Ellie?”

I keep my eyes on his chest, staying silent for a long while before answering him. “The journals didn’t have any answers. They ended a year before it happened.”

“Oh, Ellie…” His voice comes out pained and he drops his hand to wrap around my back, pressing me farther into him. “I’m so sorry.”

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