I don’t even realize I’m crying until he kisses my tears. Then he’s crying too.
How can my heart feel full of joy and pain at the same time? How is this happening when I have to leave and there is no promise of a future for us? What have I done to deserve such wicked suffering?
“Viv.” He kisses me as he quickens his pace. “God, I don’t ever want to stop feeling this.”
“I know,” I sob, throwing my arms around his neck and holding him close as my legs tighten around his waist. “This is the best feeling in the world.”
We come together, bodies joined in every possible place, and we stay entangled in one another for a long time, both of us afraid to move, unwilling to break this connection.
Eventually, he pulls out of me, and we lie side by side, skin to skin, fingers laced together. He’s wearing the saddest, most heartbreaking expression, and I feel something vital rupture inside me. Something inherent is imploding inside me in a way I’ve never felt.
“I love you,” he blurts, and I simultaneously want to jump for joy and die.
No, Dillon. No. Please don’t say it to my face. Don’t make me say it back. It will destroy me to tell you I love you and then leave.
“Don’t leave,” he adds when I say nothing because I can’t force my vocal cords to work. I’m in too much pain to speak. Tears cascade down my face. “Stay,” he whispers. I cry again, my chest heaving as pain ravages my body, forcing every muscle to shudder and shake uncontrollably. His lips brush my ear. “Say I’m the one.”
My heart cracks wide-open, and I want to scream yes! I want to tell him he is the one. That I long to stay with him. But I can’t. It isn’t possible. There are too many obstacles in the way. Lifting my tearstained face to his, I plead with him to understand. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
I watch him shutting down. Bit by bit, the wall goes up, and he retreats behind it. Nodding tersely, he swings his legs out of bed. “Then I guess that’s it.”
I sit up, panicked and confused. “Please don’t go. I thought you were going to stay tonight?”
He cracks out a bitter laugh as he pulls his clothes on. “Why delay the inevitable? We might as well do this now.” Shoving his feet in his sneakers, he turns around with his pants on and his shirt unbuttoned. I cower at the aggression and rage painted across his face, pulling the covers up over me to shield my body, feeling suddenly vulnerable. “It’s not like you really care. If you did, you’d want to stay.”
“I do!” I stand, wrapping the sheet around myself. “I wish I could stay here with you. I swear I do. But it’s not possible, Dillon.”
“Anything is possible if you want it badly enough.”
“That’s not fair!”
“What’s not fair is you making me love you and then leaving to go back to that prick!” he roars in my face, spittle flying in the air, and I take an automatic step back, plastering my back to the wall.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I protest.
“Bull-fucking-shit.” An ugly sneer slides across his mouth. It’s one I haven’t seen since the early days. “You’re pathetic. Crawling back to him after he’s probably spent months fucking his costar.”
“Reeve has nothing to do with this. He won’t even be in L.A.” I actually have no clue what his schedule is like, but I’m pretty sure that’s the truth. He’s in hot demand, and his schedule is usually jam-packed.
He jabs his finger in my face. “You can’t even admit it to yourself.”
“Dillon, my entire life is back in L.A. My classes are starting in ten days. I’ve signed up for an evening costume design course. I have taken out a lease with Audrey on an apartment near UCLA. My parents are there.”
“You could transfer to Trinity permanently, but you never even tried, did you?”
“The thought did cross my mind.”
He harrumphs. “Yet you did nothing about it.”
Anger simmers under my skin. “Hang on here a second. You never gave me any indication until right now that you wanted me to stay! Do you think I’m a mind reader?”
“Cop the fuck on, Hollywood. We both know what we’re feeling. Or maybe I was the only one who fell.” He purses his lips in disgust as he buttons his shirt.
“You know that’s not true, and what difference would it make anyway, Dillon? You’re not going to be in Dublin for much longer. The band will take off, and you’ll go with them. You’ll be gone for years, and there’ll be groupies and women coming out of the woodwork, and I’ll be pushed aside. We’d try to make it work, but it wouldn’t. I know. I’ve already been there.”