are so real you can feel them to your core. It doesn’t matter where you go, they go with you. Anywhere.’
I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I was so tired of it all. Literally exhausted and bone weary. And Ethan was turning out to be a complication I seemed to understand less and less every day.
‘It’s your graduation day in your other world, isn’t it?’
The lump in my throat stopped me from answering, but I managed a small nod.
‘Don’t …’ He paused. ‘Don’t forget to bring me my words,’ he murmured, reminding me that I still needed to gather his proof.
The Shift was coming. My stomach sank and I rolled over to face him, not bothering to hide my tears. For a moment I thought he was going to say something else, but he was quiet. ‘You may as well just say you still don’t believe me.’
His hand clasped the side of my face, tilting it back, his fingers biting into the back of my neck. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I just want you to get the translation.’
His eyes softened and I couldn’t seem to tear my own away. We stayed locked like that, his hand on my face, and before I knew what I was doing my own arms went out, wrapping around him. If only this once, I needed to hold him.
I barely managed to whisper, ‘Ethan, it’s almost midnight. What is it you couldn’t tell me?’
He shook his head. ‘I refuse to believe you’ve made your final decision, and you need to do that first. I don’t want this to influence it.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I wish I wasn’t so selfish, I do … but Sabine?’
I shot a look at the clock. So did he. One minute till midnight.
‘What?’
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t do it tonight … with Dex. Don’t. Come back to me, Sabine. God forgive me, but … I love you.’ His hand slipped all the way around my neck and he pulled me to him, his lips going to mine hungrily as he gripped me so tight I could feel his arms trembling. He kissed me in a way I’d never imagined possible. I kissed him in a way I’d never thought possible.
How had I never known a kiss could shatter everything?
I matched his need with my own until I thought I might explode with the sheer intensity of my desire.
Instead, lost in the moment, I Shifted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Wellesley, Monday – Graduation Day
I rolled right off the bed, searching for Ethan’s arms, before realising he wasn’t here. And I wasn’t there. My hard thud on the floor helped punctuate the point.
I flopped onto my back and lay there, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe, how to exist. But how could I? Life as I knew it had changed in every way. I didn’t know if simply breathing the way I always had would be enough; I didn’t know if anything operated on the same playing field anymore. I mean, Ethan had said … and then he had … and I had … and it was … and now …
What?
Reality came crashing down in the form of one more quick thought.
Was it possible?
Was Ethan playing me still?
Treating me for some illness he thought I had?
I didn’t want to believe it, but despite what he’d said, insinuated, done – he still hadn’t told me the one thing he knew would change everything, the thing I needed and wanted to hear more than anything else in the world.
‘I love you’ are admittedly the words most girls want – but what did they really say? I want to spend time with you, I want to get close to you, I care about you. But the weight of those words still didn’t give me what I needed from him. Nothing about what he’d said told me that he, Ethan, believed me.
Time was ticking.
He knew it as well as I did. He’d made his thoughts clear on the matter. He thought I was wrong and was making a mistake. Was this his way of forcing my hand? And, if so, would I let him walk me down that road?
I stared at the ceiling, wishing that I understood what was happening to me. Wishing I could go back and see his eyes on me after that kiss. I think I would have known then.
But I couldn’t, and it was graduation day.
And I still couldn’t forget his words. Not me.
Tears started to slip from my eyes.