all just a mask. You’re hiding behind it because you’re a fucking coward who can’t tell the truth, Warren Knight.”
That finally makes him snap.
“You want the fucking truth?” he yells, turning and stalking towards me until we’re just inches apart. I don’t back down despite the fury in his dark, beautiful face.
“I. Can’t. Commit,” he says, landing each word with another punch of his voice. “And you can’t stay.”
“But I’m trying to!” I yell back at his face. “I might be able to if I—”
“Don’t,” he cuts me off. “Because I can’t stay either.”
I frown, his words making me stumble. “What the fuck are you talking about? Stop talking in circles and spit it out!”
“I’m fucking dying!”
His breathing heaves. Mine stops.
I blink. He stares.
My three words become overshadowed by his three words.
“What?”
He snatches my hand and shoves it against his chest, right over the small scar there.
“This. This right here is why I can’t commit,” he says, gripping me so hard it hurts. “Brugada syndrome. It’s genetic, and mine is more severe than most. I’ve already had too many close calls, even with the defibrillator. I’m one more episode away from blacking out and not waking up again. It killed my father, and it’ll kill me.”
I shake my head in denial. “No. You’re not dying. Look at you. You’re fine.”
A flash of pain crosses his expression before he shutters it again. “I’m not.”
My face scrunches up in utter despair as more misery drips from my eyes. “No. You’re Warren Knight. You have resources and wealth...there has to be something you can do.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” he says, dropping my hand with disgust. “You think I haven’t seen all of the best doctors in this whole goddamn world? My condition just keeps worsening. Short of a heart transplant, there’s nothing more I can do,” he says evenly, as if it’s a line he’s heard a hundred times before. “And a transplant might just kill me faster.”
I stare at him in shock. Time explodes between us as the weight of his words lands at my feet like bombs. The rubble of his truth buries me in anguish.
“Six months ago, my doctors told me that I’d be lucky to live out the year. That’s why I don’t fucking commit. Ever. I take women out, I fuck them, and that’s it. And lately, I couldn’t even bring myself to do that. But then you came along, and you were so goddamn…”
“What?” I press.
He shakes his head, refusing to finish that train of thought. “I let myself open up to you because you told me you were leaving. You broke our deal,” he says accusingly. “Now you ruined this, and I hate you for it.”
“Warren…” I try to take a step towards him, wanting to wrap my arms around him, but he backs away and turns to leave.
“It’s time for you to leave. Now. I don’t want to see you again, Trix,” he says without looking back.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Go home, Trix.”
I thought falling from the Veil hurt. I thought turning corporeal and having my wings ripped from my back was agony. I thought landing was jarring.
But it was nothing like this.
Watching Warren walk away from me is the most pain I have ever felt. And I break.
I break into a million pieces right there on the beach, with only the fading sun and the first winks of starlight to see me shatter. I fall to the sand with my hands on my face and the ocean at my back, the waves breathing with my sobs as my eyes drip with the same saltwater as the sea.
It wasn’t enough being a cupid. I didn’t truly understand love until I became human. And I didn’t understand heartbreak until it was my heart shattered at the shore.
Chapter 32
Warren
It’s been three weeks since I left Trix behind on the beach.
She’s tried to come into my office twice that I know of, but my security team turned her away on my orders, barring her from the building.
Three weeks should’ve been plenty long to get over her, considering our short time together. But if anything, I just miss her more, despite how much I try not to.
The success of CupidShuffle doesn’t help. I see her damn photographs everywhere I go. Magazine covers, billboards, social media ads… Hell, it’s even displayed on every floor of this damn building, courtesy of Tonya.
No matter where I go, Trix’s smiling face is right there to remind me of what I did. Which is