A ripple of familiarity races through his eyes. I expect him to move towards me. To save me the way I’ve spent every night dreaming about for thirteen long years.
It’s a storybook ending I couldn’t have scripted if I tried. Right as my attempt to free myself from my nightmare fails, here comes the boy I’ve dreamed of to swoop me away and slay the beast.
He’s going to do it. He’s going to rescue me. I can feel it in my bones.
A smile—a stupid, dreamy smile, but goddamn it feels so good—spreads across my face. Warmth surges through my body and I couldn’t possibly care any less about Tristan anymore.
It’s over.
All this shit is over.
The blue-eyed boy and I are going to have the house we dreamed of soon—with chickens and cows and bees and love—and everything is going to be okay; everything is going to be beautiful and free of pain; everything is going to—
Then, at the last second, Cillian averts his gaze.
And Tristan wrenches my face right into his.
No.
No.
No.
This can’t be happening.
“You fucking slut,” he snarls, breath wreathed with the stench of stale beer. “I have friends all over this fucking city. Did you really think you could just sell the fucking ring I gave you and it would go unnoticed?”
The pawn shop owner.
Of course.
That’s who gave me away.
Tristan shoves me into the arms of one of the waiting cops. “Cuff her,” he orders.
Startled, I try to flail. But there’s no escape route available anymore. Two cops converge around me and suddenly, my hands are being bound together behind my back.
I don’t protest. I’m too busy looking for Cillian.
But he’s disappeared into the throng of people, not one of whom even bothers to meet my eyes anymore. As if the shittiness of my life is contagious and they’ll contract it if they look too hard for too long.
Just before I’m forced into the back of the cop car, Tristan grabs my face and twists it close to his again.
“There’s going to be consequences for this, my little whore,” he promises me in a violent hiss. “You’re going to rot in jail for the next few days. And while you’re there, I’m going to loan you out. Anyone who wants to can have a turn on you. Any man in blue. Hell, I’ll let a couple of the prisoners get a go as well.”
I look past him, still searching.
I was a fool to think he’d remember me.
But I know one thing for certain now. Something I’ve always questioned, because life has a habit of turning dreamers into cynics.
It tells us that something can’t possibly be sincere if it happens too fast.
Or too young.
Or too suddenly.
But now, I know.
Seeing him again after thirteen years has made it clear.
I fell in love with Cillian O’Sullivan thirteen years ago.
I never stopped loving him.
I never forgot him.
The question is…
Did he forget me?