Cara’s POV
Alaric’s features instantly harden at my question.
“Do you...love me?” I asked him. For every moment that passes without a response, it’s as if the question continues to echo around us, endlessly repeating.
His mouth forms a hard line, and he looks down at the ground, folding his hands with his elbows resting on his knees.
I wait.
And wait.
...And wait.
And finally, he speaks.
“...No.”
The word hits me like a bullet. Like all the air immediately vanishes from my lungs in a great gasp, stealing all of my oxygen.
It feels as though the ground has been pulled, no, ripped, from beneath me. Like suddenly there’s a great hollowness that exists inside of my chest.
And to think, I had told myself that I was over him.
I realize with the freshness of an open wound that I am di
