“Why didn’t he break up with her right away?” I demand, like Joe is the source of my pain right now, and not Dom. Like he is to blame for all this mess.

He gives me a bone-tired look, rubbing his knuckles over his jaw. “You want the truth?”

“Please.”

“Because Dom has been used to getting away with whatever the fuck he’s done from a young age, and he thought he could have it both ways until the very last minute. You weren’t a sure thing until you had his ring on your finger, and he wanted to keep his options open. I think a part of him will always love Sarah. She had detonated his life when she moved to Yemen. He just needed . . .”

“Someone without a career and a busy schedule and a huge life. Someone he could mold into the woman he needs,” I finish for him, bitterness exploding in my mouth. Because that’s exactly who I’ve been to Dom. From the get-go, I was this detached girl he’d met in weird circumstances. No family, no friends, no direction. I was not in danger of fleeing. Of doing something big and not including him.

He took you to a pottery class, I internally taunt myself. Because he knew he was going to mold and shape you into who he wanted you to be.

There is not enough air in the room. In this town. In the universe.

“As soon as he bent the knee in Mom and Dad’s living room, I knew he’d made a decision.” Joe’s Adam’s apple bobs with a swallow. He looks so shattered right now, and I don’t have it in me to keep fighting with him. Actually, he is right. He is not to blame. So what if he knew? I wouldn’t rat Renn out, no matter what he’s done.

Sarah and I were in competition. The old versus the new. And now it hits me why Sarah told Dom to get on Craigslist all those months ago when Loki showed up at his balcony. Because she was right there, in his apartment, when it happened.

Joe turns to Belinda. “When are we going to get some news about my brother?”

Belinda shoves a bookmark into her hardcover. “We will have new information when one of the doctors performing the surgery comes out, Mr. Graves.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Joe mutters.

“No news is good news.” I rub at my forehead. “There’s nothing to work on if he’s dead.”

The last word explodes between us, and we both stare at each other, wide eyed.

Sarah storms back to the waiting room wearing fresh scrubs, a face shield, and all the other stuff surgeons wear. She passes the double doors leading to the surgery room, not sparing us a look.

“He is going to be okay, right?” I ask Joe.