DOMENICO
My lungs locked. My eyes stung. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even blink.
I kept telling myself she didn’t mean it.
“She didn’t mean what she said,” I told myself. Repeating the words in my head over and over again like a f*****g mantra. “She couldn’t… she wouldn’t know how much it would hurt me.”
It’s just words. Just meaningless words.
“I’m not… not just that,” I repeated, over and over. “It doesn’t mean what it sounded like. I know she didn’t mean it.”
But it still hurts. Damn it, it still hurts.
When I stepped toward her, she stepped back like I was something she needed to escape from. Her hands shook around the phone she held like a weapon, her chest rising and falling too fast.
“Don’t come any closer,” she whispered. Her voice was small... Broken.
That… that pierced
