Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Saying those words was the equivalent of swallowing a broken mirror. Each syllable felt like a fresh shard of glass slicing my throat. It’s not what I wanted. Not a single cell in my body wanted to say that to Miles. I wanted to be with him for however long fate had decided. He completed me in ways I couldn’t quite explain or pinpoint. I just knew he made me happy. Which also gave him the power to destroy me.
I remember my mom trying to hide her crying from me. Her praying, begging, asking why. She’d been devastated.
I didn’t want that for me. I’d rather suffer through this hurt now than have it compounded years later.
“Dylan… I… You do feel like my mate. I felt it the night of the full moon. I don’t know exactly why it wasn’t the same before but—”
The coach blew a whistle. I shook my head. It was too late. He could be lying. Or he could be exaggerating his feelings. Whatever the case, I couldn’t let myself give in. As badly as I wanted to, I just couldn’t. If we started like this then we’d be destined for disaster.
“I’m sorry, Miles. Maybe we can stay friends.” Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t a possibility. I cared too deeply, felt too passionately about him to ever have the label of “just friends.” If this were really a break, then it would need to be a clean one.
I reached for my helmet. I wanted my face concealed in case tears betrayed me, showing just how deeply this hurt me. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to do this to Miles or to myself. But I felt like I had to.
I got up onto my blades and went to the gathered team. Coach started drawing some plays on the whiteboard, talking about weaknesses and last-minute switch-ups and whatever the fuck else. I tuned him out. Couldn’t really hear him past the pounding of blood in my ears.
That was truly fucking terrible. I hated myself. Started to second-guess what I’d just said. Tried to stop the spiral from taking hold, from dragging my thoughts down to the depths of hell.
Couldn’t do it.
I only found focus once I was out on the ice. That night I played one of the most aggressive and reckless games of my entire career.
Our win felt like nothing. As inconsequential as an ant getting stepped on. The deep, dark void inside me—the one that Miles had fought back with his light and his presence—started to swell again.
It was time for me to close my eyes and dive in headfirst. Fuck it. I wasn’t meant for love, and I had to give up on ever finding it.
Fate could go fuck herself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Time to Talk
MILES
I sat across from Emmy inside a packed and loud sports bar. The team had come to celebrate, but I came to chug a few drinks and try to piece together what the hell had happened tonight.
“All right,” Emmy said, leaning forward. “Tell me everything.”
“I have no fucking idea.”
But I tried. I told Emmy everything. I started at the end—just like Dyl had taught me—and worked my way back, trying to see a way I could salvage this.
Shock was the only thing I had felt for the entirety of tonight’s game. Disappointment and hurt started to seep in toward the end, but a cold and numbing shock was predominant.
I replayed everything that I’d done and said over the last few days. Trying to figure out where I went wrong. What had I done to push Dylan away? I told him I loved him, I spent a full moon with him, I was honest with him about the fated connection… and there. Like manipulating a patient’s sprained leg to figure out where exactly the damage had been done. That singular thought sent a shockwave of pain through me.
His fear stemmed from the truth. The alternative would have been to lie to him, but I just couldn’t do that. Maybe I should have explained more clearly to him that I thought I had felt that fated pull when we ran under the light of the full moon, but he would just think I was saying that to salvage whatever I could between us. And if he did believe me then he’d just chalk it up to our emotions being heightened because of the shift.
Thankfully there were no players that needed my attention once the final buzzer rang through the arena. I wasn’t sure about the other team, though. The game had been brutal tonight and mostly because of the aggressive plays Dylan pulled off on the ice. Coach had to call him back after the second time he almost started a full-on brawl out there.
“What the fuck’s gotten into you tonight?” Coach shouted as Dylan jumped over the wall and took his spot on the bench, only a couple of feet away from me.