Page 59 of Steel's Secret
Outside, the snow continues to fall. Inside, we hold each other like survivors of a shipwreck, clinging to wreckage that's already sinking. The fire crackles. Her breathing steadies against my chest. My heart slows to match hers.
"When?" she finally asks, voice small.
"Dawn."
She nods against my shoulder. Doesn't argue. Doesn't beg me to stay. She already knows the answer, has always known.
"Then we have tonight."
"We have tonight," I echo.
And we do. We spend it mapping each other's skin, whispering confessions into the dark, making love again, slower this time, softer, like we're trying to stretch the hours into something eternal.
But dawn always comes.
When the first gray light creeps through the window, I'm already dressed, watching her sleep. Her hair fans across the pillow. Her hand reaches for the space where I was.
I press a kiss to her forehead. One last touch. Aria opens her eyes, and tears settle in the depths of them. She strokes my jaw and whispers, “This wasn’t wrong.”
“No,” I breathe. “It was perfect.”
Her voice trembles. “And perfect things never last around you.”
“No,” I whisper again, hating myself. “They don’t.”
She dresses slowly, every motion threaded with grief. When she reaches the door, she turns back.
“Steel,” she murmurs.
I step closer, but not close enough to stop her.
She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out the Saint ring, my ring, the one I gave her without meaning to. The one she held during every moment she was trying not to break.
She lifts the chain around my neck, fingers brushing my skin, and slides the ring into my palm.
She brings it to her lips and presses a soft kiss to the metal. “Keep this safe for me,” she whispers.
I reach for her hand, but she pulls it back gently.
“No,” she says. “You don’t have to let me go. I’m letting you go.” Her voice shakes. “I love you. Even if love is the weapon that’s killing us.”
Snow roars against the door as she opens it. Wind whips her hair back, cold, wild, and unforgiving.
Aria steps out into the storm. I stand there and listen to her tires crunch down the drive until the sound fades into the storm. The cold hits me when the door finally swings shut, a blast of winter that feels too much like a world without her. The taillights of her car glow red through the snowfall, bright, then dimmer, then gone.
I stand in the doorway long after she disappears. The Saint ring lays heavily in my hand. The last piece of her I’m allowed to keep.
