I Left Before He Could Watch Me Break

TWO.

Damaris POV

I didn’t remember standing back up. I remember Jayce’s hand reaching for my arm, and I remember flinching away from it so hard I nearly fell again, because if he touched me right now I was going to shatter into pieces too small to ever put back together.

I remember Rosie saying something else, something I didn’t let myself hear. I remember the cold night air on my face and my own feet carrying me away from that cabin, down the route, faster and faster until I was running, and no one followed.

That told me everything I really needed to know. He also didn't follow.

By the time I reached Emmeline’s door my whole body was shaking so hard I could barely knock. She opened it already frowning, took one look at me, and pulled me inside without a single question.

“Sit,” she said. “Damaris, just sit before you fall.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are the distant thing from fine I have seen in twenty years of healing this pack.”

She knelt in front of me, pressed two fingers to my wrist, and her frown deepened with every second that passed. “Your pulse is all wrong, what happened?”

I opened my mouth to lie. What came out instead was a sound I didn’t recognize as my own, something broken, something that had been waiting all night to escape and then I was crying so hard I couldn’t speak at all.

Emmeline didn’t push. She just held my wrist and waited, the way she always did, until I could get words out between the gasping.

“He said…” I pressed a hand to my chest, still aching.

“He said the bond picked wrong, Emmeline. He said he’s tired of babying me. He didn’t even…” My voice cracked apart. “He didn’t even defend me.”

Something shifted in her face. Not surprising. Something worse and recognition.

“Damaris.” She said my name carefully, like she was choosing each word with tweezers. “I need you to hear me clearly right now, and I need you to not fall apart until after I have said it, because you need to understand the truth of your situation.”

I nodded, though I already knew from her tone that I didn’t want to.

“Your sickness isn’t going to stabilize on herbs anymore. I was able to slow it, not stop it. What your body needs, what it has needed since the bond first sparked, is reciprocation. A completed bond. Without that…” She stopped, swallowed and started again.

“Without that, I am looking at months, Damaris. If you’re strong and weeks if you’re not.”

The room went very quiet.

“Weeks?,” I repeated, like saying it back would make it make sense.

“I am so sorry.”

I laughed. It came out wrong, cracked and hollow, nothing like a real laugh.

“So the bond that’s killing me belongs to a man who just told his…” I stammered. “who told Rosie that he’s tired of me.” Another broken laugh. “That’s almost funny, isn’t it?”

“Damaris!!”

“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “Don’t tell him. Please, Emmeline. Not yet, maybe not ever.”

She stared at me like I had lost my mind. “You want to die rather than tell your mate you’re dying?”

“I want..” My throat closed. I forced the words through anyway.

“I don’t want him to stay because he feels guilty. I don’t want him staying out of duty, out of obligation, out of pity, Emmeline. I heard what he really thinks of me tonight. I would rather have whatever time I have left with dignity than spend it watching him pretend.”

“That is grief talking.”

“Maybe.” I wiped my face, and my hand was still shaking. “But it’s my choice to make, not yours and definitely not his.”

She didn’t agree. I could see that in the tight line of her mouth. But she didn’t argue either, because she had known me long enough to know when I had already decide something no one could talk me out of.

I went home and started packing before I could think better of it.

Clothes, my mother’s tracking blade. The little box of pictures from before she died. My birth papers, my savings, everything that mattered folded into one bag like my whole life could fit into something I could carry alone.

My hands kept shaking the entire time, and twice I had to stop and sit on the edge of the bed just to breathe.

Iris.. My childhood best friend found me like that, sitting on the floor beside a half-packed bag, staring at nothing.

“Damaris, what?” She dropped to her knees in front of me.

“What’s going on? Rosie’s telling everyone Jayce caught you eavesdropping like it’s some big scandal, and you look like..” She stopped, really looked at me, and her face went pale. “You look like you’re dying.”

“I am.”

Iris went very still. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” I told her everything, the sickness, Emmeline, the months, maybe weeks, what I had overheard at the cabin. I watched her face crumble piece by piece as I spoke, and by the time I finished she had both hands pressed over her mouth, tears streaking silently down her face.

“You have to tell him Damaris,” she whispered. “Damaris, he has to know. He can complete the bond, he can fix this, I swear”

“He can’t fix wanting me, Iris. That’s not something a ceremony fixes.”

“I don’t f*****g care! If it saves your life…”

“I heard him.” My voice broke completely. “I heard him say he’s exhausted by me. That the bond picked wrong. You want me to walk up to that man and beg him to save my life so he can spend the rest of it resenting me for trapping him in it?”

“I would rather accept you alive and resentful than in the ground and right,” Iris sobbed. “I’m telling him, I’m going right now, this can’t happen.”

“Please.” I grabbed her hands, held them so tight she winced. “Please, Iris. I am asking you as my best friend, the same sweet person in this pack who has never once let me down, don’t take this choice away from me too. Everyone else already has.”

She was shaking her head, still crying, but I held on.

“Promise me,” I said. “Please.”

It took a long, long time. But finally, brokenly, she nodded. “I promise. But I hate this. I hate this so much, Damaris.”

“I know.”

My phone rang before she would even let go of my hands. My father’s name lit up the screen, and my whole chest seized.

“Hey, Dad,” I said, forcing my voice into something steady.

“Hey, sweetheart.” A pause. “You sound strange. Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Damaris.” His voice sharpened the way it always did when he sensed a lie forming. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Dad. I promise.” My eyes burned. “I love you. You know that, right?”

A longer pause this time. “I love you too. But you’re scaring me a little, kid.”

“I’m fine,” I said again, and hated myself for it. “I have to go. I’ll call you soon.”

I hung up before he could ask anything else, before my voice could give me away completely.

That night, once Iris had finally gone home, reluctant, red-eyed, making me promise to text her the second I stopped anywhere. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote the only thing I could bring myself to write. Not an accusation. Not the truth. Just enough.

^^^Jayce, I heard what you said tonight, and I understand. I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore. I’m going somewhere I can rest. Please don’t look for me and I hope you’re happy.^^^

I left it on the table where I knew he would find it, picked up my bag, and walked out into the dark without looking back once.