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Tears well in my eyes, and I want the pain to stop. I preferred the barren place where nothing crept through the cracks because all it does is hurt. “I’m so tired,” I admit, and his expression twists. He sits up from the side seat and sits on the bed beside me.
“I know, sweetheart. It’s almost over,” he says as he begins to wipe away my tears.
But will it ever stop?
I tried so hard to fight this all these years, and I just don’t have anything left in me to give.
“It’ll never stop,” I whisper. “I’ve hurt so many people.” My voice breaks.
His expression twists into anguish. “You’ve been hurt the most, Elanee. And I turned my back on you when you needed me most.” Guilt floods his voice and he looks away.
Another fracture and the dam of emotion is about to spill over. I can’t handle it anymore. “It hurts so much,” I confess as tears spill over.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry for being late,” he says and returns to meet my gaze. He goes to extend his other hand to cup my face, except it seems excruciatingly slow. His gaze shifts to his hand, and I can see the internal conflict.
“Dmitri?” I say. Concern immediately sparks to life. “What’s wrong?” Something doesn’t feel right. I grab his hand and help him put it on my face so he now only has me to focus on. “Dmitri?” I ask again.
Shame mars his features and he sighs heavily. “I’ve kept things from you because I didn’t want you to worry. I won’t use it as an excuse for all the things I said to you. But when I tell you this, I want you to know that no matter what, nothing will change the course of tomorrow’s events.”
Something doesn’t feel right, and I don’t want us to suffer any more pain. So why do I feel like what he’s about to tell me will hurt the most?
“I’m sick, Elanee.”
A palpable tension stirs between us as his words reverberate in my head.
The final crack splinters me into a million pieces. Three words I never wanted to hear from the person I cared about most. Another lump forms in my throat. This is a joke, right?
“I fought with Luca about a month after you arrived in New York to set in motion everything that led to now,” he begins to explain. “When we had that fight, I took a knock to the back of my head, and after I left the club, I blacked out. Layla took me to the hospital, and that’s when they discovered a tumor on my frontal lobe.”
Air rushes from my lungs, and a cold chill runs over my body.
Tumor.
The memory of first seeing Layla outside the hospital returns to me.
Oh, my god.
Was that when Dmitri received his diagnosis?
I can’t speak.
I can’t breathe.
“Elanee, focus on me. It’s okay.” His grip tightens on my hand.
That snaps me right out of the confusion. “It’s not okay! Dmitri! It’s not okay!” Rage ignites me. “How can you tell me this is okay?! What does that even mean? You’re… you’re… sick! Can’t they operate on it, can’t they—”
“Calm,” he says carefully as he pulls me toward him. I hadn’t even realized I was trying to stand. He tugs me into his lap.
“Don’t tell me to be calm. There has to be something that can be done. You can’t just leave me like this!”
“Ssh,” he says as he brings my head close to his chest.
“Don’t treat me like a child, Dmitri!” I try to push away from him, but he’s too strong. Or I’m too weak. A reminder of the broken little thing he’d walked in on only a few minutes ago. “We can fix this, right?”
He seems reluctant to tell me any more, most likely because of how I’m reacting. But how did he think I’d react to this? I narrow my gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me this? Is it because you thought I was too fragile to hear it?”
“It wasn’t that.”
