Page 127 of Tears of Glass

Dan leans down and kisses the top of my head. Eli’s eyes are closed, his long dark lashes caked in blood. “I just wish you’d chosen me for me and not because I was your rebound from him.”

Eli’s eyes flicker open and despite the swelling already puffing the skin of his face, the blues settle on my own with burning intensity. Wincing, he sits up, clutching his middle. He’s got cracked ribs, I’ve seen that before.

“What did he say?” His voice is a hoarse whisper.

Dan speaks for me. “I said I wish I hadn’t been her rebound after you broke her heart.”

“You slept with him?”

Inside I crumple to a ball as Dan continues. “Didn’t she tell you, Your Lordship? It was the first thing she did. She always comes back to me. I’m the one she runs to.”

“Fucking shut up, Dan.”

Eli stands, well sort of, side stepping all over the place as he lurches for the front door.

“Eli, wait, please.” I hold my hand out to grab him, but he shrugs off my touch.

The look on his face as he turns at the door slices me straight in two.

Then he’s gone, and Dan and I are left with shattered fragments of every moment of our lives to that point.

But this time I refuse to accept it. It’s time to run in the opposite direction. Towards him.

“Eli, wait.” I run after him. The stupid dress holds me back, slowing me down, which is impressive considering he’s injured. The Land Rover is parked on the curb and I wish he’d got into it earlier and never run into Aiden. I wish none of this had ever happened.

I wish most of my life hadn’t happened. But it has. It is what it is.

He heads towards the pier, stumbling in the dark. In the end I stop and rip at the bottom of the dress, tearing up the hem to give myself more freedom and then I run again.

“From the moment I met you, Faith, you’ve consumed me.” The sound of my footfall clatters after his along the pier. This is where I told him my truth. Funny that now it comes back down to this. “I was in love with you, with my heart and soul.” The past tense in his words is resoundingly clear. “You were it for me.”

“Eli,” I start, but he holds a hand out to stop me.

“No matter what I do or say, you are determined to run. And I get it. I’ve told myself I will always run after you. Run anywhere to be with you. But—”

“I’m sorry. I was hurt.” Shit. I can’t breathe.

“So every time we row you run? Every time you’re hurt are you going to sleep with someone else, or run back here to Dan?”

I want to smack him in the face, but the damage has already been done. “You knew what I was like when you met me. I never hid who I was.”

Droplets of rain begin to fall, sliding down the bare skin of my arms, soaking through his bloodstained shirt. There will be no kissing in this rain.

“That night of the ball, I was destroyed. Knowing what I’d done to you, killed me. I wanted to die from the guilt I held. But you were here, with him.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It was everything like that. You told me you two had only been friends. I asked you outright and that’s what you said.”

“Elijah! You’d broken my goddamn heart.”

“No. You’ve broken mine.” His words floor me. I don’t know how I’m still standing. “Faith, I would have given you everything.” The rain hits us harder and I shudder and shiver, but whether it’s the cold rain on my bare skin or his words I don’t know. “I would have given you everything I have. I would have fought for you with every breath in my body.”

Our tears slide and mix with the rain. They fall down his face as quick as they slide down mine.

“But you lied.” It’s the final sentence in a closing argument as he finishes our relationship once and for all.

I nod. I did lie. I told him to his face that Dan and I were only friends. It was the truth, but there are shades of grey there that can’t be glossed over with a white lie.