Epoch (Transcend Duet #2)(48)

Griffin rubs his hand over his head. “Swayz, I believe you. I accept it.”

“Then why?”

“Because I don’t want to risk someone fucking with your brain on the slim chance that you might remember something that will make a difference in the fate of Doug Mann. I don’t want to risk watching you lose your mind to some awful death. And …” His Adam’s apple bobs as his forehead wrinkles.

I hug myself as if I can physically hold everything together. “Finish it. You’ve come this far. Just … finish.”

“I don’t want you feeling things toward him. I’m begging you to leave all the emotions buried in the fucking ground with her body.”

My jaw slides side to side. “And you’ve shared all of this—Daisy, Nate, the reincarnation—with your family?”

“Yes.”

I grunt, shaking my head. “And they believe it?”

“They don’t know what to believe. But given the fact that you have a psychiatrist who believes you, it’s hard to make a case for anything else. However, they agree that leaving Madison—leaving Wisconsin—is the only way we stand a chance.”

“Oh my god …” I run my hands through my hair, nudging the edge of hysteria and delirium. “It is an ultimatum. I agree to go and we stand a chance. But what if I refuse to go?” I hold my hands out to my sides, palms up. “Then what?”

For the first time tonight, I sense genuine pain coming from Griffin. “Swayze …”

Great. I’m Swayze now. This isn’t happening. Someone please wake me the fuck up from this nightmare.

“I’m leaving no matter what.”

Pressing my mouth into a firm line, I nod slowly, focusing on the floor between us. “So this isn’t really about what’s best for me. You just want to move.”

“Jesus …” He sighs, finally showing an edge of agitation, pacing several steps in each direction, head bowed, hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans. “It’s all about you! Don’t you get that?”

“Then why would you still move if I say no?”

He stops in front of me, grabbing my face with a firm grip. “Because I’m not going to watch you self-destruct. I’m not going to watch you fall in love with another man. I’m not going to watch you be a mom to a child that’s not mine. You want the perfect proposal and the perfect wedding. But I just want you. Since the day we met, it’s been that simple for me. And I’ll take you with the souls of a million lives woven into yours. I’ll listen when you need me to listen, I’ll protect you when you’re scared, I’ll be whatever or whomever you need me to be … but I won’t be him.”

“I don’t want him,” I whisper.

“No?” He cocks his head to the side.

“No.”

“Then move with me.”

“Please don’t ask me to do that.”

“Ask you to do what? Marry me? Have a family with me? Move away with me?” His words gain a sharper edge as his hold on my face tightens. “Be faithful to me?”

I swallow around the jagged boulder in my throat. Griffin’s nostrils flare as he lets go of me with one hand and reaches around to his back pocket.

“Carry a picture of me in your pocket?” He holds up the photo of Nate.

I don’t have to ask where he got it. I’m wearing leggings today. Griffin does our laundry, and I just got sloppy and forgot the photo was in the pocket of the jeans I left on the floor of our closet.

How could I be so careless to leave it there? How could I be so stupid to have it in the first place?

He wads up the photo and releases it to the ground while his other hand palms the back of my neck, pressing our foreheads together.

“Swayz …” My name bleeds from his chest as heavy breaths fall between us.

I blink and the dam releases all the heartache that I can no longer ignore.

He draws in a shaky breath. “You’re. Breaking. My. Fucking. Heart.”

I try to speak, but painful sobs smother my words.

His lips press to my cheek. Even now, when he has every right to be angry, all I feel is his love—his pain. I’ve hurt my grocery store guy. And I don’t know how to make it right.

“If you don’t walk away from this…” he ghosts his mouth over my face, erasing my tears with his lips “…I won’t be able to hold on.”

My fingers curl into his shirt.

Don’t let go.

“Griff …” I bury my face into his chest. “I love you.”

His hands fall limp to his sides, leaving a chilling ghost of his touch along my face. After I make a wrinkled wet mess of his shirt, he takes a step back, tearing us apart.

No… I’m the one who’s tearing us apart because I’m so messed up in the head. It’s a morbid thought, but at this moment I wonder if a brain tumor would be less painful for both of us.

“I know you love me.” Griffin saying that to me, while his gaze remains affixed to the photo of Nate on the ground, is a self-inflicted dagger to my heart.

This is so much worse than Apple sitting on my bucket. This is Griffin taking a trip to California with her. No … this is worse. There’s no way a night locked in our bedroom, under the sheets, will fix this.