Page 47 of Downfall

“Made what stop?” Her voice cracks a little on the last word.

“The other pain.” I slap the same hand on my chest.

Her face pales as she brings a hand up to her mouth. The same hand that held mine a few seconds ago. “And this time? It was…it was because of me. Because of last night.”

Slowly and gently, I move her hand away, and she lets me. “No, Firefly. You didn’t do anything wrong. I did.”

This time she lets me call her that. She doesn’t lash out. She just shakes her head like she’s trying to break apart the thoughts swirling inside. “This is too much, Declan. I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s really not.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“I—” She shakes her head again. “I have to go.”

Abandoning the wrappers on the couch, she turns to leave but flips back around before reaching the doorway. “Promise me, Declan.” Her voice is strained and raw. “Promise me you’ll stop letting people hurt you.”

I nod. She could ask me to promise her anything and I’d do it. Because the truth is that she’s the only person in this universe who has the ability to truly hurt me.

But I don’t say that.

20

DECLAN

I brace my hands on the sides of the sink, looking at my reflection in the mirror. The bruise under my eye has taken on a deeper purple hue and the split in my lip is starting to scab. My hair is growing out, the dark roots becoming more prominent. I need to dye it again, but the thought makes my stomach churn. The dye was supposed to be a way for me to separate myself from the boy I used to be. The boy she fell in love with. But now? Now I want to be the man she learns to trust again. I can’t do that if I’m still hiding who I really am, which is why I told her what I did last night. I knew she would blame herself because that’s who she is, but it’s not her fault that I’m ten different types of fucked up. I needed her to know that.

She’s still sleeping, or maybe she’s avoiding me. Either way, I can’t stop thinking about everything that went down yesterday. The fight, the shower, the movie.

A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts. Who the hell is here at eight in the morning on a Sunday?

The last person I expected to see when I open the front door is my father, a tight-lipped frown sewn on his face, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Marshall Astor has always been an imposing shadow in my life. He’s tall with dark brown hair, like my own natural color, although his is now peppered with grays. I was never afraid of monsters when I was little. I wasn’t scared of the dark. If anything, I embraced it. No, the only thing that scared me was him. He rarely hit me. He preferred psychological control. Marshall’s weapon of choice was words, though he often reinforced them by locking me in the closet in his office.

Joke was on him, though. That’s how I learned to thrive in the dark.

Until she showed up.

I look up at him and almost laugh at how afraid I used to be. He can’t do shit to me now. “What do you want, Marshall?”

I stopped calling him ‘Dad’ a long time ago.

“Aren’t you going to invite me into your new home?”

“Nope.”

He pauses for a moment as if he’s weighing each word before he speaks. “Maybe you’d like to introduce me to your new wife then?”

Fuck.

I knew he’d find out eventually. Word spreads faster than wildfire in this town, and he makes it his business to know everything. Still, I was hoping I had more time.

“She’s not available,” I say as I start to close the door on him. “I’ll tell her you stopped by, though.”

His hand darts out, stopping the forward movement of the door, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he looks me over, no doubt taking in the cuts and bruises littering my face until his gaze lands on my lip ring and his mouth twists in disgust. He made me remove it when I worked with him, but I’d put it back on whenever I wasn’t at the office. To my surprise, he doesn’t comment on the ring or the bruises. Instead, he goes straight for the kill.

“That’s a shame.” He adjusts his perfectly straight tie. “Although it seems we’ve already met. She’s that little girl who used to follow you around like a desperate whore, isn’t she?”