Page 181 of No One But Me
Alone.
The silence roared louder than the destruction. Louder than my ragged breathing. Louder than the blood pounding in my ears.
Because she was gone.
And the house knew it.
The emptiness pressed in from all sides—suffocating, absolute, the kind of loneliness that came from having something precious and then watching it walk away because you were too broken to deserve it.
My knees buckled.
I went down hard. Palms slapping tile. Broken hand screaming. Blood dripping from my knuckles to pool on pristine white stone I'd chosen because it looked clean. Untouchable. Perfect.
Now it was stained.
Like everything I touched.
I knelt there among the ruins of furniture and control and the last shred of hope I'd allowed myself to feel. Breathing hard. Ashamed. Alone. Bleeding.
A beast with nothing left to protect but himself.
And I hated it.
God, I hated it.
I could go after her.
The thought carved through me with razor clarity. Surgical. Precise. Offering salvation and damnation in equal measure.
I could drive to the hospital. Find her in the waiting room with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. Pull her into my arms and whisper lies until she believed them. Tell her I didn't mean it. Tell her I needed her here. Tell her the house felt wrong without her breathing in it. Tell her anything except the truth—that letting her go was killing me.
I could demand she come back. Use that voice she responded to—the one that made her knees weak and her resolve crumble. The one that turned defiance into surrender. I'd done it before. Bent her will to mine through sheer force of wanting. Through possession disguised as protection.
I could do it again. Lock the doors. Hide the keys. Chain her to me so tightly she'd forget what freedom tasted like. Keep her in this house where nothing could hurt her except me. Where loan sharks couldn't touch her and hospitals couldn't take her and death couldn't steal the only good thing I'd ever held. Make her mine so completely she'd never leave. Never choose anything except me.
The fantasy played out in vivid detail—Belle pinned beneath me, furious and beautiful and trapped exactly where I wanted her. Where she belonged. Where the world couldn't reach her. Where I could keep her safe.
My broken hand throbbed.
Blood dripped.
The empty house breathed around me.
I stayed on the floor.
Because loving someone meant more than keeping them.
It meant letting them choose.
Even when they chose to leave.
I pulled out my phone with my good hand.
Blood smeared across the screen. My broken fingers dangled useless, throbbing in time with my pulse. I wiped the glass against my thigh and scrolled through contacts until I found Hades.
My fingers trembled as I typed:
need your trainer. fingers fucked up.
