His face falls, breaking my heart, my chest, all of me.

“This,” I say, gesticulating between the two of us, “is over.”

“Don’t do this.” His words are barely more than a whisper. Fatigue makes his whole body shrivel in front of me, shoulders heavy, neck slumped. I’ve never hated myself so much.

“Thank you for everything, Aaron.” My voice is shaky as I succeed in getting those five words out.

I don’t remain there to see the look on his face as I end the one good thing in my life. Instead, I run inside my building and take the stairs two by two to reach my apartment. Once I’m inside, I lock the door behind me. Aaron’s the type of person who’d try to come up and get in to talk more about this.

A loud bark makes me look up. I open Molly’s crate, and right away her large muzzle nudges my thigh. She’s as close to me as my own clothes, as if sensing I need her. Without a second thought, I sink to my knees to hug her.

And then I let out all the tears I have in my body.

Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

Aaron

When I was nine, I broke my arm while I was visiting family in the Dominican Republic.

Tio Manuel had brought me and my cousins on a hike to a huge waterfall close to their house. It was all the way into the humid, thick forest, and I was so excited I was practically skipping around. Without my parents for once, I felt like a real grown-up. It was the best day of my life.

Until I slid on a rock and fell right onto my left arm.

For a second, the pain was so sharp, it overtook everything in me, like it replaced the blood in my veins and the thoughts in my brain. There was nothing but this. I couldn’t even breathe. I thought I could never experience anything nearly as painful as that.

And yet the pain from that day doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling now. I’d break a thousand arms in order not to feel this kind of hurt.

My windshield wipers are working at full capacity against the icy rain to allow me to see the road in front of me. I’ve been in the car for thirty minutes, but for all I know, I might have been driving in circles. I’m so out of it, I can’t think of a destination. The only thing I need to do is keep myself busy if I don’t want to fall to the ground and never get back up.