He sat down beside me and said nothing for the longest time, and I didn’t mind his company. In a few days, we’d be separated for good. It had to be that way. In this short time David and I were allowed to be together, free of restrictions, I’d grown to love him greater than I ever imagined possible. And if I was going to lose that now, I never wanted to see another man, or feel another happy feeling, as long as I lived.
“I wanted to tell him, Ara,” Jason said. “I just didn’t want to destroy your last few months together.”
“You wouldn’t have,” I whispered, and he was so shocked I spoke that he gasped, coming up on his knees. “Once he finds out,” I added, “he won’t have a reason to die for me anymore.”
I heard him sigh my name out, but when I looked up, the sun was suddenly gone and so was Jason.
***
“Ara, please?” Morg stood in front of me like some sour-faced old hag at a nursing home, jamming a plate in my face. “You haven’t eaten for two days. Just. . .”
“Go away,” I said numbly, my face dry and sore from tears.
“Fine. I will. But you can’t keep this up. David’s called three times. He’s—”
“Call him.” My eyes met hers, and the blackness of her pupils expanded. “Call him, tell him to come home.”
“Okay, but. . .” She looked down at her phone. “Why?”
The tears spilled out over my cheeks then, without having filed a request. “Just tell him to come home.”
“Tell him yourself.” She held the phone to my ear.
I heard his breath, heard him ask Morgaine several times what was wrong with Ara, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell him over the phone. I wasn’t even sure I could actually find the words to say it.
He let out a long, soft sigh. “My love? Is that you?”
“Please come home,” I whispered.
“Ara, I can’t. Look, if this is about the dagger, I swear I’m not planning t—”
“Just come home!” I screamed down the line, hearing David's short gasp before I threw the phone at Morgaine. She caught it, her eyes white with shock, and gently stuffed it in her pocket, taking backward steps until she closed my bedroom door behind her.
***
I heard his voice down the hall. I heard Falcon brief him on the ‘situation’ as they stood outside my door. My heart beat in my throat, knowing what would come next—knowing how my world would come undone like a loose thread, and there would never be any way to wind it back together again.
The door opened and David just stood there for a second, taking in this form on the mattress—all cuddled up to the bed-head, her face probably red and swollen.
He squatted down by the bed, reaching out for my leg.
“No! Don't touch me.” I backed away, making myself smaller.
“My love, you’re scaring me.” He moved closer, stopping when I shrunk away again. “Please. What happened?”
“I . . . I. . .” I sobbed.
“Aw, Ara?” he said, half laughing, cupping my chin. “Sweetheart, just tell me what it is and we’ll fix it. Please?”
I shook my head. “You can’t fix it, David.”
“Okay.” He laughed again. “Maybe we can’t. But I can at least make you feel better. Come here—” He reached for me but I jerked away and looked up—looked him right in the eye, holding back all the tears, the self-pity, the quivering lip. He didn’t need to, nor would he want to see it.
“David. . .” The world stopped. “I slept with Jason.”
His smile widened, a breathy laugh escaping through it before his eyes darkened and he slowly looked down at the ground. “You did what?”
I wanted so badly to say I was sorry. I was sorry. But that was the last thing he’d want me to say, and I was sure it would result in his hand across my face. “I slept with Jason.”
He stood up. “When?”
My gaze travelled past him to the five figures standing stunned and still in the room behind him. I closed my eyes, hiding from the ache in theirs. I hadn’t heard any of them—not one of them walk in the room.
“David?” Jason stepped forward, but Falcon grabbed him by the arms, holding him in place at command of a single pointed finger from David. “Just let me explain.”
“Do. Not,” David said, angling his face away. “Speak.”
“But she—”
“I said, shut up.” The cool in David’s voice sent shivers through my body. He turned and looked at me. “Get her up. Get her on her feet.”
Blade gently hoisted me to stand by my arm; my legs tingled where the blood rushed back into them after so many hours sitting in the same position, and my feet went so numb Blade pulled me closer to hold me upright. “You okay?” he asked, but I didn’t answer. My eyes were locked onto David, gauging his every move against my expectations. I shouldn’t have been afraid, because anything he chose to do to me would be fair. But I was scared as hell anyway.
“Mike?” David said.
Mike looked up from his hands where he’d fallen to sit on the coffee table. “I—”
“Did you know?”
He couldn’t even speak. He was completely lost for words, and I couldn't decipher what I saw in his eyes—the hurt, the anger, the worry—whether it was for what I’d done, or for what David had the legal right to do next.
“How long ago?” David looked at me.
“The lighthouse.”
He folded forward ever so slightly. “That’s why you were out there? That’s how you fell?”
I nodded.
“And . . . what? You . . . you were just gonna. . .”
“She didn’t know.” Jason took a step forward, stopped instantly by Falcon. “I erased it.”
David just nodded, his jaw so tight his cheeks hollowed. “That’s real f**king convenient, isn't it?”
“It had to be that way,” Jason said softly. “She couldn’t carry the burden.”
“The burden?” David said, pointing at me. “The burden is hers to carry. She . . . oh god!” He dropped both hands to his knees, catching his breath. “I can have you both stoned for this. Do you know that?”
“Among other things,” Falcon added, looking at me with that stern disapproval he’d seemed to have traded for friendship over the last few months. It was all destroyed now. Everything. All the faith they had in me, just gone, like sudden death.