Chapter 35
Theo
" If you loved someone even half as much as I love Poppy, you ' d never be able to live without them," Julian asserts.
The first thing I want to do is see red.
And I do. I allow the anger to sweep over me, tinting my vision with a haze of fury, letting a restlessness of emotions wash through me until they become a chaotic fuzz. I even hear a slight static buzzing in my ears. Then, the black void that has taken residence in my heart asserts itself, eclipsing everything else.
Silence.
Emptiness.
Nothing.
I am nothing without her, but she is everything without me. She is safe, protected, a nobody, just another beautiful woman who loved a prick and learned to move on.
No matter how many times my new family tells me they can keep her safe, I still refuse to get her involved in my life. It would be too selfish of me.
Julian's an asshole, but he ' s both right and devastatingly wrong.
Love is different for everyone. In some men ' s eyes, love means fighting. To others, it means fleeing. And in a rare few, love means surrendering—letting the person you cherish most fly free. It ' s the most excruciating choice because you have to endure watching them soar without you by their side.
But I get to watch her fly. That ' s a solace in its own right. Better than witnessing her wither and perish.
The door slowly clicks shut as I watch Julian depart, charging headfirst towards his love.
"I'm not living," I murmur to the lingering silence he left behind. "I ' m merely surviving." And sometimes, merely surviving is enough of a victory, especially when you're doing so with a broken heart.