Written in the Stars(85)

Darcy curled her arms tighter around herself, going numb and not just from the cold. “I don’t know. I’ve got my FSA exam—”

“In a couple weeks. What about after that?”

After that. Next month and the next—long-term plans. One day she’d find herself so wrapped up in Elle that when the inevitable happened, there’d be no such thing as a clean break. When she lost Elle, she’d lose part of herself, too. Something she’d sworn never to do.

“I don’t know, Elle. I don’t . . . I didn’t plan for any of this, I wasn’t looking for this. I didn’t want this.”

Elle’s expression soured, lips folding in, chin quivering before she rolled her shoulders back and stood a little straighter. “Sorry to wreck your perfect plans by having feelings.”

Apparently she was not numb enough because Elle’s words stung like a paper cut, not deep but unexpected. A jagged ambush that sliced open the surface of her skin, proving how easy it was for Elle to hurt her without much effort. Darcy wasn’t a robot, she wasn’t unfeeling, not like Elle made it sound. She felt . . . God, she felt and sometimes she wished she didn’t. Wished she could turn it all off because she felt too much.

She gulped down a breath of cold air and watched as her ragged exhale fogged in front of her face. “That’s not fair.”

Elle’s eyes squeezed shut. Her front teeth sank into her lower lip and her nails bit into the skin of her upper arms. She sniffed hard and opened her eyes. Glassy and damp, moisture clung to her lashes.

Darcy’s chest panged. She’d put that look on Elle’s face and it wasn’t what she wanted. None of this was going the way she’d wanted.

“Not fair?” A watery laugh spilled from Elle’s lips as a single tear slipped from the corner of her eyes, tracking down her cheek, and with it, glitter. One sparkling tear track. “What’s not fair is that you had me going. For a minute there, I hoped”—Elle’s throat bobbed and her voice cracked—“we could have something real.”

Behind them, the door to the hotel opened, the soft strains of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” spilling out onto the sidewalk. Of all the stupid songs in the world. “Elle—”

Elle gave a curt jerk of her head and scrubbed her hand over her face, wiping away her tears and smearing more glitter across her skin. “No, you know, I might be starry-eyed and I might be a little bit of a mess sometimes, and maybe I wear my heart on my sleeve.” Elle took a stuttered breath in through her mouth, gasping softly. “But at least I have a heart, Darcy.”

Whatever little bit of warmth remained in Darcy’s body extinguished as the world spun to a stop, time slowing to a crawl. This didn’t feel like heartbreak, this was heartbreak. Darcy had miscalculated; she wasn’t falling, she’d fallen. She pressed a hand to her chest as if in doing so she could keep her heart from shattering entirely, but the damage was already done. Too late.

“Whoa, whoa.”

Darcy turned, chin trembling and nose running, arms wrapped around her body so tight she could barely suck air in. She would not lose it. Not now, not yet. Not in front of Elle and not in front of Brendon, who’d just stepped onto the sidewalk, footsteps slowing as he approached.

He glanced between her and Elle, eyes narrowed, lingering on Elle at last. “Elle, that’s not—”

A frustrated cry slipped from Elle’s lips as she shook her head, walking backward, slipping away. “No offense, Brendon,” she choked out, eyes wet and dull, holding none of the sparkle Darcy loved. “But you have no idea what this is.”

Elle pivoted on her heel and in that second before she turned, their eyes met. A spark flickered in Darcy’s chest, an echo of heat, of what was, what could’ve been. If only.

And then Elle was gone, turning and striding down the sidewalk impossibly fast, or it looked like that because Darcy’s vision was blurred and each time she blinked she caught a staggered snapshot of Elle walking away, the distance between them growing larger and larger.

Brendon placed a hot hand on her shoulder, hissing through his teeth. “Darce, come on, you’re—”

“She’s right.” The air was so fucking cold and it stung her scratchy throat, burned her nose. But nothing hurt as badly as her heart. Splintered and fractured, with each inhale it felt like fragmented shards scraped against her chest like daggers. Darcy could barely breathe. It was too much to bear. Darcy didn’t want to hurt, didn’t want to feel. “You have—you have no idea, Brendon.”

“It’ll be okay,” and he sounded so sincere that what was left of her resolve crumbled.

Spine bowing forward, Darcy curled in on herself and gasped out a sob, startling herself and Brendon. “It’s not. It won’t. It was— Fuck, Brendon, it was fake.”

Brendon looked confused. “What? Darcy—”

“Me and Elle, it started out fake.” Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The words tripped off her tongue as salty tears dripped from the tip of her nose, her vision obscuring until Brendon was nothing more than a tall blur beside her. “It wasn’t real. It was so you’d get off my back and quit setting me up on dates because I didn’t want to fall in love, Brendon. I didn’t want to fall in love and this . . . this is why.”