“Becca, who is—” Evan asked as he came out from the kitchen. He used a dishtowel to dry his hands before throwing it over his shoulder. There was something a little different about him, but Drew couldn’t put his finger on it. Truth be told, he wasn’t really interested in trying. His question died on his lips as he spotted Drew. His brow pinched and he mashed his mouth into a hard line. “Oh. What do you want?”
A low growl rattled in Drew’s chest and he knew he wouldn’t be able to form any words to that fucking cupid, so he turned his back on Evan and moved closer to Becca. “Did you know?”
She met his gaze before her eyes flicked over his shoulder, no doubt searching out Evan.
“Know what?” she asked with an almost practiced caution.
“Did you know about him?” Drew waved his arm behind him in the direction he knew Evan stood.
Her skin paled and her gaze sought Evan more desperately. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit!”
Becca jumped at Drew’s explosive shout, but he couldn’t feel sorry for her. She’d known that there was a bigger picture. She’d known about Heaven’s apparent plan. It was obvious in her eyes and clear from her lying lips. She’d known what Evan was, what he was doing and what he was capable of, yet she’d still strung Drew along. Even after everything had come out, after Drew had been left heartbroken and ready to beg for a second chance, she hadn’t taken two fucking seconds to tell him the truth—that he’d never stood a snowflake’s chance in Hell of winning her heart. That he’d been marked as the pathetic loser who’d get his heart broken by her even before they’d uttered a single word at his welcome home party.
Drew’s hands shook and he still couldn’t seem to get his breathing under control.
“Drew, maybe we should talk in private.” It was Evan’s voice from behind him that spoke.
Drew spun toward him, a response ready on his lips; a string of cuss words ready to fly at a moment’s notice and a threat agreeing to a private talk outside.
“No!” Becca leapt forward and grabbed Drew’s shoulder before he could take a step or utter a single one of the words he’d prepared.
Drew jolted at her touch, as it brought him crashing back to Earth. What was he doing? Why had he gone to Becca’s house? He was only torturing himself.
Why was he still there?
He’d just needed her to admit the truth, even though he knew it wouldn’t change a damn thing. He turned back toward Becca and lifted his gaze to meet hers, imploring her to be honest. “Did you know what he is?”
“Was.” It was her only response, and it confused Drew even more.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” he snapped as frustration boiled in him once more.
“It means that whatever you think you might have learned about me probably isn’t quite true anymore.” Evan’s voice was steady, lulling, but lacked the compelling quality it had held before—the same quality Amity’s voice had held when she’d tried to stop him.
Drew spun on him. “So you’re not a cupid sent from Heaven to fuck up my life?”
“No. Not anymore.”
Drew felt his lips curling into a sneer and he was ready to leap.
Evan put his hands up in a gesture of peace. “What I mean is, I can see why you’d think that, but you have to understand there was no malicious intent.” He smiled and issued a small chuckle. “Well, at least not at first. I can’t say I didn’t want you out of the picture once I’d realized how desperately I loved Becca though.”
He looked over at Becca with such love and reverence that Drew wanted nothing more than to smack him in the mouth to wipe the look off his face. Drew’s teeth ground together audibly and Evan looked back at him.
“But it was never our intention for you to be stuck in the middle of everything going on. Neither of us wanted you to be hurt.”
During Evan’s speech, Becca had crossed to his side and taken his hand. She returned his love-struck look with a matching one of her own.
“Becca has a voice, doesn’t she?” Drew said, glaring at Becca.
Becca drew Evan’s hand in front of her, almost as a shield, and clasped it between both of her own. “I do. But Evan knows what I want to say.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Drew. It’s just that Evan”—she turned to look at him with a matching reverential stare—“well, he was a cupid, but he was never actually assigned to match me up with anyone else. It’s just that neither of us really understood what that meant until it was too late.”
“Heaven doesn’t really issue concrete instructions,” Evan added. “It’s all to do with free will.”
Drew stared between the two of them talking about Heaven, cupid, and instructions as though it was all just a normal part of everyday life.
“Has the whole fucking world gone crazy?” he snarled.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Becca said. “But eventually it makes sense. And I guess it’s nice to know that someone has your back.”
Drew was incredulous. “Has my back? Has my fucking back? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Becca and Evan looked at each other in confusion.
“If this shit is Heaven having my back, I’d hate to see what would happen if I pissed them off.”
“How did you find out about all of this anyway?” Evan asked.
Drew snorted. “An angel. Someone who knows all about your past. Amity, she’s—”
“Amity?” Evan repeated, cutting Drew off. Evan’s brow was set deep in a frown as though he was trying to place the name but was coming up blank.
“Amity? The one you said is helping you?” Becca asked, before pressing on as though Drew had actually confirmed it. “An angel?”
“A female angel?” Evan asked, almost over the top of Becca. “I’ve never heard of a female angel.”
The calamity of sound and Amity’s name being said over and over in conjunction with the word angel was too much for Drew to stand. He didn’t need this confrontation anymore, not as much as he needed silence and space to think.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, stalking back out of the house without waiting to say a proper goodbye.
Amity caught sight of Drew leaving the house and raced to catch him.
“Drew, listen, I never—”
He held up his hand to silence her. “I don’t want to listen. You lied to me, Am. I thought . . .” he sighed as his head dropped to look at the ground in front of him and his hand fell to his side. “You know, never mind, it doesn’t matter what I thought. You lied to me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I haven’t done this in so long.”
“I told you what was happening to me. I told you that I couldn’t keep my secrets secret. I told you the impact it was having on me and you knew it was your fault. You knew that, and you let me believe I was going crazy anyway.”
“I never meant for you to think that. I screwed up, Drew. I’ve made some terrible mistakes.” Tears rolled down her cheeks and her voice hitched. She thought of all the mistakes she’d made, of the ones that had led to Rose’s death, to Evan’s suicide, to the exact point she now found herself—standing on the precipice of the unknown, practically professing her love to a human. Peter’s words raced through her mind.
“You’ll know.”
He’d been right after all, because she knew. She loved Drew. He might have just been the best damn thing that had ever happened to her, and she’d screwed it up. She was supposed to be healing him, but in so many ways, he’d ended up healing her. And now, she could tell she either had to convince him to forgive her, or she would lose him entirely. An eternity of knowing she’d screwed up the best thing she’d almost had would be her punishment for failing him.
But she couldn’t be with him either. If she pursued a relationship with him, something more than just friends, eventually they’d break Heaven’s rules. They’d both face punishment for tha
t.
She wanted him as badly as she needed to leave.
“My choices, my mistakes, have cost people their lives, Drew, yet none of it, none, has hurt as much as this does.” She clutched her hands to her chest and tried to stifle the sob that rose to her lips.
Drew closed his eyes. “You could have told me,” he murmured.
“You wouldn’t have believed me.” She brushed her fingertips over his cheek. Because the pathways that had been opened up during their last touch were still wide open, so she knew Drew could feel exactly how much everything hurt her, and his pain was just adding to it. He would also be able to see the truth in her words that she would have to leave again soon. Love between an angel and a human was forbidden. She was faltering, ready to give in to it all, but terrified of what might happen to her—and to him—if she gave in to everything she felt.
“This is me, Drew,” she said. “This is the truth. There’s nothing else but this.”
With the connection still echoing through her body, she could feel Drew. She knew his instincts screamed at him to run. Just like he had done with Becca. Like he had done most of his life if he was completely honest with himself. Only she could feel his resistance to it. He didn’t want to run anymore. Not from Amity. The sight of her tears disarmed him, and made him yearn to wrap her in his embrace until all the pain had left them both. She wanted to tell him he should. She wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to give in to his strength and offer him her own in return. But she couldn’t.
A sob hitched her breath as she let slip all of her truths. Her pain. The fact that she had to leave him anyway. The fact that she couldn’t love him—not because she didn’t, but because it was forbidden. She could see the exact moment Drew decided what to do next, yet she could do nothing to buffer her heart against the pain as he stepped away from her touch.
“Leave me alone, Amitiel.”
She flinched away from his use of her real name, just as he’d known she would.
“I want nothing more to do with you.” His voice was steady, calm. If she hadn’t just been privy to his most private thoughts, she might have thought his words were true.
“Drew, please,” she sobbed. “I don’t want it to end like this.”
“Leave. Me. Alone.” His voice was a low hiss.
She shook her head. “Not like this, please?” she begged, taking a step toward him, which he countered with another backward step until he stood in the middle of the road.
“You said it yourself, you’ll have to leave anyway.”
She sighed and dropped her hand. “I know. And that hasn’t changed, but I don’t want you to hate me.”
“We both know this was doomed to fail from the start. You can’t even be yourself with me.”
She closed her eyes and loosened her hold on the layers of humanity her grace was wrapped in. She allowed as much of her angelic self to shine though as she dared. “This is me.”
His awe-struck look faded almost as soon as it appeared. “Maybe, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry, Amitiel, but it’s not enough.”
He turned and walked back to his car with his head hanging low and his shoulders slumped, leaving Amity to experience the heart-wrenching pain of true heartbreak alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Drew drove away from the scene trying desperately hard not to glance in his rearview mirror at Amity standing, watching him leave. She’d opened herself to him, shown him every part of herself, even the flawed parts she kept hidden away, yet he’d left her. He’d told her he didn’t want her around anymore.
Of course, it was a lie.
A blatant and painful lie, but he hoped it would protect him in the long run. The only consolation he felt in the whole screwed-up situation was that she hadn’t dumped him for another man. She’d genuinely had feelings for him. He felt the truth of that radiating through their connection. But he’d also felt her pain. Her confusion. Her agony at his touch. He’d felt her desire to remove the hurt from him, and to correct the things she’d done to him to try to fix the heartbreak Becca had inflicted on him. Amity’s intentions were noble, but she’d fucked it up.
Drew growled at the empty car, certain that if Amity wanted to catch up with him, she could have without too much thought or effort. The fact that she hadn’t just confirmed all the reasons he’d been right to refuse to stay with her and allow his heart to open up to her anymore. It would have only ended with him embarrassing himself further, not to mention causing himself so much extra pain considering he had been falling for her a little more every damn day.
He drove toward his father’s house, not really feeling like dinner, but knowing that he couldn’t return home either. Not yet. It was so full of reminders of Amity that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be comfortable there again.
It was only when Drew climbed from the car at his dad’s that he realized he’d told his dad that there would be an extra guest for dinner. Because of that simple text, there would be a litany of questions over why he’d shown up alone.
As expected, he was greeted at the door by his father and Addy, and the question he was dreading.
“I thought we were having another for dinner tonight?” his father asked.
“The plans changed,” was all Drew could manage. Then he had to grind his teeth together to stop from saying more as his father proceeded to berate him for being selfish.
“Addy’s been slaving over this meal ever since you invited yourself over today. She went out of her way to prepare another dish when you said you were bringing someone because the original menu wouldn’t have been enough for the four of us. Couldn’t you have at least called to let us know that you’d changed your mind again?”
Drew flexed and released his fingers, forming and reforming a fist over and over, as he listened as his father lectured him.
Addy seemed to sense there was something bigger going on and she placed a hand on her husband’s chest to silence his tirade.
“Are you okay, Drew, honey?” she asked, moving to place her hand on his shoulder.
Drew’s guilt over leaving Amity on the side of the road, his ache over going to Becca’s house to stir up things that were better left unsaid, and even his particularly cruel treatment of Addy over the years, all came crashing down on him the instant her fingertips touched his shoulder and he broke down. With a shake of his head, he fell into her open arms, and allowed her to comfort him. She was the next best thing to his own mother—possibly better because he couldn’t remember his mother ever offering such unwavering support.
When Becca decided she loved Evan instead, it had brought Drew close to the edge, but he’d never imagined crying genuine tears over something as silly as lost love. Not willingly. Now, with the Amity-sized hole beginning to work its way through his heart and soul, he couldn’t imagine not grieving for everything he’d lost.
Before he could really comprehend what was happening, he’d been led to the sofa and handed a stiff drink. He tossed it back before going on a rambling outburst about his terrible behavior. By the time his tongue had stopped wagging, he’d told his father and Addy everything about Becca, how she’d made him feel and how it had ended. He’d been able to hold himself together just enough to avoid mentioning any of the supernatural elements of the story, but that was only one of a very few things he was able to hold inside. The other was Amity. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about her, even though those wounds were the worst at that moment.
After he’d finished, his Dad gave Addy a look that asked for some space, and then left the room. He returned seconds later with something he’d retrieved from his study. When he placed it on Drew’s lap, Drew recognized it as the wedding album from his parents’ wedding. Vivid memories of his mother pouring over it in the weeks and months leading up to her decision to uproot his life in Flint to follow her dreams rushed into Drew’s head.
He didn’t understand what it had to do with anything though, or why his father had handed it to him. Drew turned over t
he first page, and looked at the inscription on the title page.
Dale Petersen and Eleanor Conn.
“I loved your mother more than anything,” his father said quietly. “Until you came along of course.”
Drew flipped over the pages while his father spoke, still not understanding the point of the photo album or the words his dad uttered.
“We were happy. For so long, we were happy. And then one day . . .”
Drew flipped the page again, and a note fell out.
“Dale, I am no longer satisfied with our union. You have been a wonderful father and an adequate husband. However, I can no longer be stifled by your expectations. I need my own career. I have been offered the chance of reclaiming the position offered to me fresh from college, and I have decided that I am going to do what I should have done many years ago. Andrew will of course be coming with me. With regret, Eleanor.”
Drew frowned as he read the letter. It seemed so impersonal. So like his mother.
“I never knew anything was wrong. I never even suspected that your mother was unhappy. Until I got that note, I thought our lives were perfect.”
Even now, years later and happily married to someone else, the note still affected Drew’s father. It was clear in the hitch of his voice and the way he avoided eye contact when Drew looked up at his pacing form.
Drew still didn’t understand exactly what the note and the album were supposed to mean though. Why his dad had given them to him.
“She broke my heart that day,” his father continued. “It came out of nowhere and it was almost enough to destroy me. There were days when I seriously contemplated ending it all.”
Drew swallowed heavily as his father talked about being suicidal. It had never occurred to him that the marriage breakdown had affected either party so severely. Even though he’d been a bit of a self-absorbed teen at the time that it happened, he’d thought he had known the truth. He’d assumed that the split was a natural, and fairly amicable, one. It was a revelation to find that wasn’t the case. His hands shook as he held the note up and read it again. No matter how many times Drew read the words, the pain in them—both from giver and to receiver—was evident. It gave the words a power that almost seemed to crackle off the page.
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