And then I’d follow.
Midnight struck and I couldn’t sleep again. I saw her wide, walnut eyes staring back at me on the pillow, and then she vanished into smoke.
So with a bottle of whiskey in hand, I went to our room.
The guards at the end of my wing were curiously absent, and I was too drunk to care. I stumbled through halls until I got to the no-man’s-land between Gemma and Abigail’s wing.
Then I pushed open the door.
Since it was basically a glorified storage room, nothing really changed, and it had become a museum of our love. I walked over to the corner of the room, staring at the luxurious Russian rug, still with jewel-toned pillows still atop them.
Story had looked so small and perfect lying on them. Not innocent…open. No walls.
I took a drink to swallow the rock in my throat. The harder I stared, the more she took shape. Her slightly shaking hand as she undid the zipper at her side. The way her hazel gaze never strayed from mine.
“Perfect,” I took a long drink, closing my eyes. “Fucking perfect.”
“Excuse me—”
“Story?”
I spun at her raspy, quiet voice. Shadows stared back, cobwebs of silence. Slowly turning from the door, I took a drink.
Clang.
I jerked back, heart racing.
It was tea—not now, back then, when I’d stolen her into this room and kissed her. I could see it now, falling from her small hands as she reached for me.
A tea tray.
I walked like a zombie to the door and slammed my hand against the wall beside it, closing my eyes, trying to summon her with a memory.
I’d never seen anything like her eyes.
Her sigh, her—
Gasp.
I jerked up at her breathy inhale—spinning into nothing. Darkness. An oppressive emptiness. I dug my nails into the wall, taking another drink.
The shadows on the floor spun.
The waves crashed behind me.
Too little time. I’d had too little time with her. I squeezed the glass neck of the bottle, grinding my teeth. In that time, my grandfather had refused to let us be happy.
He couldn’t just leave us the fuck alone.
It was his fault.
It’s done. It’s over. I broke us. Let me go.
I spun to the window. She was a shimmering mirage, the only thing clear her heated gaze.
“Story, wait—”
I ran to the window, grasping at air, stumbling through fog and memories that vanished into smoke.