Page 78 of Since the Dead Rose

She shakes her head and backs away, her eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m so sorry,” is all she says. She repeats those words while backing up to the car. Her hand falls to her side in defeat, and the wooden rose drops to the ground, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She looks like she’s given up. I guess she doesn’t have any fight in her after all, when her grand performance comes crashing down.

“Get out of here,” I growl.

My heart shatters into a million pieces. I exposed every inch of it to her, to the first person outside of our little group since the dead rose, and she took it and laughed. She probably laughed herself to tears after I’d fallen asleep after telling her my stories. She made me—all of us—fall for her. We constantly risked everything for her.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats.

My hands clench into fists. My head swarms. She needs to leave before I become the monster she thought me to be.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers again before jumping into the car with Buddy, turning the ignition, and peeling out of here. The wooden lavender rose snaps in half when a rear tire crushes it.

Nathan’s laugh fills the night air while we watch the taillights disappear. It rings in my ears with a mocking tone that rattles my heart. Only after she’s gone does that laugh remind me who this man is. The things he does, how he twists things in order to toy with people. His revelations that make others turn on the people they trust most.

What he did to Max was the exact thing he did to her. And I punished her for it.

The headlights disappear.

What have I done?

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