I watch him closely as a mixture of emotions plays across his face. Finally I understand his mistake. “You never truly let her in, did you? That’s why you didn’t return her kiss or let her move into your room. You weren’t delaying her because of wanting to make this room perfect for her… You were avoiding her.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s true. One glance around this room and I know none of this was done for Niyah. She was too bold, too harsh to appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the design, but I see it. Whether Bastien meant to or not, he created a room for us, not them.
Bastien lowers his head in shame. “I had to find a way to put her off.”
“Why?”
Bastien has a beautiful woman waiting with open arms to embrace him. Niyah may be abrupt and rude to me, but I have no doubt she is different around Bastien. She is a strong woman. He always loved that about me.
I can give him nothing but a life of regret and misery. Bastien isn’t mine to fight for anymore. “You have a chance to be happy. You should take it.”
Bastien’s head jerks up. He throws himself out of the chair and kneels beside me at the head of the bed. “Surely you know I don’t love her.”
“It doesn’t matter what I know or don’t know, Bastien.” My throat tightens as I’m forced to look away. I can’t stand to look at him as tears rebelliously collect in the corners of my eyes. “She loves you. She wants you.”
“But she’s not…” He plunges his hands into his hair. He looks stricken as he spreads his arms to look back at me. “She’s not who I want.”
The coarse undertone running through his voice tears at me as I push up to my feet, needing space. I mutter something as I stumble away, clinging to a wall for balance. My legs quiver beneath me and I slide down the wall.
My stomach churns as I clench my teeth together, willing myself not to be ill. Please, not again! I sink back onto my heels, my hands clasped tightly over my thighs. I stare up at the sky, squinting up through the darkened window.
There is something soothing about the deep blue. I search for the moon and the stars, veiled from my sight by strips of low-hanging cloud. I know they are there, far beyond the reaches of my vision, but that makes them no less real.
Somewhere, floating among an infinite number of stars, is my home, the one I have no memory of, yet I know I have a family there. A mother who pines for my return. A father who never got to hold me in his arms.
Do they have other children? I never really thought to ask Kyan about that. Perhaps I’m not as alone in the world as I feel at this very moment.
A rustling behind me alerts me to his presence. I used to sense him just by a feeling, like a breath washing over my skin any time he was near. It was almost kinetic, like two magnets being drawn by an invisible force. Now it feels broken, awkward. I’m not the same girl I was a year ago. Too much has happened.
He is different too, yet when I look into his eyes, deep down I know he’s the same man I fell in love with.
“I need to be alone,” I whisper.
“I know. I just don’t want you to do it by yourself.”
I laugh, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. When did I start to cry? I don’t even remember doing it, yet my vision is blurred and my sleeve moist. “You always were stubborn.”
“And you hated losing.”
I nod, shaking my head at the memories. There are so many of them, tiny snippets of time spent alone with him. The look in his eyes when I took my first sip of soda and spat it out all over his subway car. The look on his face when he let me drop to safety when we were cornered in the factory and I knew he was sacrificing himself for me. The way he carried me tenderly through the moonlit woods after he pulled me from the lake, saving my life again. The haughty grin when he caught me bathing in the falls. The way the light faded from his eyes when I revealed my destiny to him. The fervor of his last kiss, as if the world was ours for the taking and nothing else mattered.
I close my eyes as tears flow freely. “I’ve spent a year trying to forget you, Bastien.”
“I know.” And I can tell by the tremor in this voice that he does. He knows all too well.
I swipe a finger under each eye to clear away the last few tears before looking at him. He looks awful. The transformation would be remarkable if I weren’t the reason for it. “I wanted to hate you for leaving me…”
He nods and slowly sinks down the length of the wall until he is crouched less than a couple feet away. A moment ago, it would have felt he was encroaching on my personal space, but now it feels as if there is a huge trench between us. One that he willingly dug.