The air is thick in the car. Too thick. I can’t breathe. Things were never supposed to turn out this way. I was supposed to hope for him in secret and wish for him in another life while he was supposed to keep his heart guarded. Not love. Never love. Stars start blinding my vision, not enough oxygen filling my lungs. We messed up. I messed up. I hurt the one person in the world I wished to protect with everything I had. The one who deserves everything I can’t give. I was too selfish to see how he couldn’t stop himself from learning to care for me. He’s that kind of person. He couldn’t not follow his heart, and I let my own happiness blind me from it. But now I see it all. His pain-filled eyes. The stark lines of shock on his face. The bob of his throat, tight from stretched tendons.

He must see what I’m about to do because he says, “Don’t.”

I don’t listen. The only thing I can see right now is my need to escape. Without hesitation, I open my door and run outside. Icy rain falls on me, the droplets immediately freezing in my hair and on my skin. I don’t feel them.

A second later, another door opens and closes.

“What do you want me to say, Wren? That I’m sorry for loving you? Because I’m not.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. How can he say that when he knows the truth? Spinning on my heels, I shout, “You should be!” Don’t cry, Wren. “Don’t you see? There’s no future with me.”

I want it, Aaron, I want it so bad, but I can’t.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” he yells, face pulled tight. “You act like you’re already dead when you’re so fucking alive!”

I feel my lips whiten from the pressure with which I press them together. Why now? I needed more time. Wanted more time.

Ignoring what he’s just said, I tell him, “I’m not doing this to you.”

“That’s not your choice to make,” he says, his dark hair glinting from the rain. Droplets run over his sharp cheekbones, his plump lips. It’s as if the Universe is crying for us. Doomed from the start.

As I watch him stare at me, my thoughts blank for an instant, and his words bounce back in my head. They’ve hit me so abruptly, they tore a piece of my steel walls down. What if he has a point? What if I’m ruining my life, wasting the little time I have?

He looks at me with hope, eyes glistening, mouth half open. So damn perfect.

A perfection I would ruin, and I can’t do it. Not to him.

“Yes, it is,” I say, voice strained. “And I’m making it now.”