But at that moment, Bree no longer cared.
She gave up.
She just...gave up.
She couldn’t do this anymore.
A SHOCKED CURSE SLIPPED out of Dylan’s lips when someone suddenly hauled him back from Henrietta’s clinging form. “What the hell, man? What did—-”
His voice trailed off when he saw the look on Andre’s face.
“What is it?” Dylan did his best not to panic, did his best not to black out even as he found the worst kind of fear gripping him, threatening to choke the life out of him.
“It’s Bree...”
He did not wait for the rest.
“BREE!” He shouted her name over and over as he tried to look for her, forcing his way out of the crowd of women that did their best to flock to him with each step.
“BREE! BREE!” His gaze scanned the exits rapidly, desperately, and just when he was about to lose hope, he spotted her disappearing form in one of the smaller back exits.
She heard pounding footsteps behind her and Bree knew it was him. Ignoring the startled look on the security guard’s face, she just ran off, not even pausing to pick up her purse when she accidentally dropped it on the floor.
“Bree, wait!”
She ran faster at hearing the voice. It really was him. Her hand shook so badly that her car keys fell to the ground, slipping out of her tense fingers.
“Shit!”
When she bent down, he was there, too, crouching in front of her.
“NO!” Bree was so scared that he would reach for her – didn’t want any part of their bodies touching – that she fell back on her rear in her haste to get away from him.
Shock was clearly written all over his face as he took in her aversion to his touch. A bitter laugh escaped Bree. He had the gall to appear surprised that she didn’t want him touching her after what she saw? After everything?
“Bree?” She shook her head. The revulsion on Bree’s face made him want to howl in pain. This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be Bree not wanting him.
“I give up.”
Her voice was so low and threadbare thin Dylan almost thought he had imagined the words. But the defeated look on her face told him that he had heard her right, that Bree really had said she was giving up on him.
It made Dylan ramble. “Bree, let me explain.” This could not be happening. It just couldn’t.
She shook her head, looking like every move caused her pain.
“Babe, come on. It’s me, Dylan.” His own voice shook. “I love you—-”
“No.” Her voice was filled with such pain it shut him up, drowning him in shame with the knowledge that he had hurt her again.
“You can’t say that and then...” She choked. “You can’t just say that and keep hurting me...I know...I know you have this twisted reason for doing what you do, but God, Dylan, I can’t just...I give up. I’ll die, you’ll kill me more and more every time you remember something from your past and it makes you run away from me, makes you push me away while you run to Henrietta’s side.”
Bree stopped speaking, needing to fight just for the ability to breathe, the pain of seeing Henrietta going down on Dylan making her want to forget that she had ever fallen in love with a rock star everyone else loved.
She wanted to cry so badly, but she didn’t. Because maybe he was right – she couldn’t expect him to keep picking up the pieces every time she cried.
“Bree, please...”
Gazing at him with unseeing eyes, she choked out, “I know you’re afraid about the past happening again, but I just wish that you had tried believing in us, even just once.”
Chapter Nine
Ariadne and Andre flanked him on each side while Dylan gazed down at his parents’ graves, wondering if he, too, was bound for hell because he couldn’t feel anything about their deaths.
Ariadne moved first, bending down to carefully lay a bouquet of roses next to his mother’s engraved name.
It had been a month since Bree had left him, a month of cold and lonely blackness, living one day to the next in a haze of alcohol until his cousins had forced him off his ass to visit his parents’ graves for their death anniversary.
“I don’t give a fuck about them,” he had shouted at the two when they told them what they planned. The smart assholes had already gotten him inside Andre’s car before revealing their destination.
“You need to get a grip on yourself if you want Bree back—-”
“I don’t fucking need her! She said she loved me, but I haven’t even lost my mind like my shitty parents and she’s already left me.”
“Are you serious?” Ariadne had nearly jumped out of the passenger seat in front of Dylan as she gazed at him in incredulity. “Why wouldn’t she leave you after all the fucked up things you did, the way you kept making her see you with Henrietta—-”