Page 86 of Oblivion
“No, Storm.” She shook her head. “Go back to the party.”
“I can’t,” I growled.
“Yes, you can,” she answered in a flat voice. “And you will. Trust me, you will.”
“Please, Phee. I didn’t—”
“Dude, I don’t know what you’re doing but you’re overstepping,” Rip said.
My eyes flickered to him, the need to destroy him riding me hard, but I paced myself.
“This has nothing to do with you, Rip,” I gritted out. “Nothing at all.”
“Storm,” Ophelia murmured, taking a step closer to me. “Let me go, Storm. Just let me go.”
“I fucking can’t!” I roared.
“You’ll have to,” she said calmly. “Because I am finally letting you go.”
“No, Ophelia. Please,” I begged her. “We can go and talk. We can—”
“Go and talk with Nova, Storm,” she answered, tilting her head to the side. “I don’t belong to you. I never did. I can see it now as clear as day. The love I had for you was just a figment of my imagination. Just another fucked-up thing to keep me from drowning in darkness, but it wasn’t real.”
“You don’t mean that.” I shook my head. “You don’t.”
Rip looked at her, then at me. As if an understanding dawned on him, he finally stepped back, and without a word, walked away from us.
“I was never meant to be yours and you were never meant to be mine,” Ophelia continued. “And that’s okay. Go be with Nova, Storm. It’s obvious who has your attention, and that isn’t me.”
I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her about threats, about the things I needed to do, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but stare at her.
“That’s what I thought,” she murmured and walked away from me, taking my heart with her.
23
OPHELIA
I once googledthe true meaning of sorrow, and until yesterday, I couldn’t truly understand the words written on the screen, because what I used to feel was anger and not sorrow. At least not in its true form.
But last night… Yesterday, I finally understood what the tightness in my chest was, and an unexplainable need to simply disappear. I understood what this shattering sound in my ears was—it was my heart falling into pieces, fragments shattering on the floor of that room as my eyes zeroed in on the man I loved with the woman that was out to hurt me.
Maybe I didn’t have the right to feel this way. After all, I made my bed and now I had to sleep in it, but the logical thoughts had no place where the heart was involved, and mine… Mine always wanted things that were bad for us, no matter how much it hurt. There was a heart-shaped hole in my chest, filled with void, covered in darkness I allowed to control my life, and now I had no other choice but to accept that the life I once wanted to have was slipping through my fingers.
For all my brave and bitter words, I was in reality just another girl that played with fire and got burned. I thought I could protect myself if I ran away, but I was already in too deep, and this shield I wielded my entire life wasn’t going to protect me again.
I made a mistake that cost me more than anyone would ever know. And maybe tomorrow I would be braver, stronger and of a sound mind, but today I just wanted to succumb to darkness, to grieve for something that would never be. I often prided myself on my strength, the ability to brush things off even though they would be able to destroy and eat the last remnants of my sanity, but I knew now that I never truly brushed anything off.
All I’d managed to do is to bury them deep down, covering them with fake bravery and fake strength, but they couldn’t have stayed buried forever. I could feel them pushing forward, breaching the invisible wall I’d built, and one by one, they were going to eat me alive.
I think that even when I ran from him, I expected him to chase me, to show me that he truly wanted me no matter what. And wasn’t that what all of us wanted? To have someone that would choose us no matter how fucked up our minds were, and no matter how many bad things we did.
I guess I expected him to forgive me in a way, holding onto hope even when I pretended that there was none.
I didn’t expect him to be there with a woman I wanted to murder for the things she did, especially not since I’d told Atlas about her real intention. And from the look of the things, this wasn’t the first time they were together. This wasn’t the first time he held her like that. There was familiarity there, and that smug motherfucking smile on her face when he buried his nose into her neck… God, it shouldn’t hurt like this.
Love shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t be fucking feeling like this.
My hand flew to my chest, my palm pressing against my breastbone as if the pressure could lessen the numbness spreading from the center of my body through my bones. Yesterday morning, no matter how angry I was that he didn’t come to me, that he didn’t try to talk, I still held onto hope.
