“It’s over, Sebring.”
“And you’re in love with me too.”
“You mean something to me,” she stated and at that, his lungs started burning. They iced over when she finished, “But so did Tommy.”
“Liv—”
And that was when it happened.
Defeat slid stark all over her. It was in her face. Her eyes. The line of her frame. It was so extreme, he could feel it in air and taste it in his throat.
“Can’t you see you’re killing me?” she whispered.
He swallowed past his throat closing and whispered back, “I can’t leave you.”
“You can’t stay either.”
“We’re not done.”
“We never even started.”
“Baby, we did.”
“It isn’t for me,” she stated.
“What isn’t for you?”
“Dawn.”
Beyond tweaked, that word made him more so.
“Dawn?”
“I live in dark. Dawn never comes for me. There will be no new day where I wake up complete. Happy. Loved. There is no other side to make my way to. There is no believe. It just isn’t for me.”
“I can take you there.”
“No you can’t, Sebring. Can’t you see?”
“No, I can’t see, Livvie.”
“You can’t give me dawn and all I can give you is dark.”
“That’s fucked up and not true.”
“It’s every day for thirty-one years, except a few, the few I shared with you, and they were all a lie.”
“Livvie—”
“Leave.”
“Liv—”
“Leave.”
“Baby—”
The tears slid down her cheeks and the whisper came again.