I kissed her again, then pulled back and searched her watery eyes. Now was the time. Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed the necklace. I held it enclosed in my fist, then opened one of her hands and gently placed it inside her palm. She looked down at the keepsake in her fingers, at the diamond sparkling in the moonlight, and inhaled a sharp breath. This was why I’d brought it…some part of me had known this was going to happen.
As I spoke, Kiera’s hand started to shake. “You don’t have to wear it…I’ll understand. I just wanted you to have something to remember me by. I didn’t want you to forget me. I’ll never forget you.” You’ll be in my mind every second of every day. I can promise you that.
She looked up at me, and disbelief was as clear as the grief on her face. Tears falling like rain, she warbled, “Forget you? I could never…” The necklace laced in her fingers, she grabbed my face. Her voice intense and clear, she said, “I love you…forever.”
I crashed my lips down to hers. And I love you too…forever. There will never be another for me. Ever. You’re the one I’ll compare everyone to, and no one will measure up.
We poured our souls into that kiss. Our last kiss. I knew it was. I knew the second we pulled apart, I would leave and she would stay with Denny. It was what fate had been trying to tell me all along. I didn’t get to have her, because I didn’t deserve her. But selfishly, I didn’t want to let her go either. As the minutes ticked by, as our mouths moved together, as a sob escaped Kiera’s lips, then mine, I doubted I could go. I needed a minute…or ten, or twenty…or a thousand.
I wasn’t going to get that many though, because fate wasn’t done fucking with me yet.
Behind Kiera, the gate to the bar had just slammed shut. My eyes snapped open and I watched, helpless, as my world crumbled around me. Someone was striding toward me, someone who wasn’t supposed to be here, someone Kiera and I had foolishly been trying to shelter from this pain, but who was now getting smacked in the face with it. Denny. No…
Kiera broke off contact with me, but I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Denny. His hands were clenched into fists, and his dark eyes were drilling lethal holes into me. He wanted me dead right now, that much was certain.
“I’m so sorry, Kiera,” I whispered. This is going to be ugly. I never wanted it to happen like this…I never wanted him to see. In all honesty, I never wanted him to know.
Nothing was ever going to be the same now.
Chapter 31
Just End My Pain Already
Kiera and I stepped away from each other while Denny said our names. I couldn’t help but notice that my name was said a lot more harshly than Kiera’s. Denny looked shocked, like he hadn’t really expected to catch us like this, but more than being surprised, he was outraged. And I had to imagine he was hurt too.
Kiera put her hands up, trying to shield us from the storm that was coming. “Denny…” She had no other words, nothing to portray this in an innocent light, nothing to hide what we’d done. There was no hiding it. The lies were over.
Denny’s fiery eyes turned to me. “What the hell is going on?”
Almost relieved that the game was over, I told Denny the truth. Well, the truth in its simplest form. “I kissed her. I was saying goodbye…I’m leaving.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched Kiera press her hands into her stomach. Either the nightmare we were in now was causing her grief, or my statement that I was still leaving was. As wrong as it was to worry about it now, I kind of hoped it was the latter.
Denny’s eyes sparked with hatred, and all of it was aimed at me. Good. He should hate me, and only me. This was all my fault. “You kissed her? Did you fuck her?”
My mind rewound to my childhood. Things were so much simpler back then, although they had felt complicated at the time. I recalled blood trickling down Denny’s lip while he sat on the ground, collecting his senses; my dad fleeing from the room like he was terrified of what Denny might do; and me, sitting on the ground beside Denny, dazed and in awe that someone would do what he’d just done for me. Denny deserved the truth.
“Yes.” I cringed as I drove in the knife. The damage was done now. Our friendship was over.
Denny’s mouth dropped open in shock. He must have been hoping he was wrong. I sort of wished he were. “When?”
“The first time was the night you broke up.” I knew I was leading him to a horrible conclusion with my statement, but it was what it was.
He grasped what I was hinting at right away. “The first time? How many times were there?”