Shattered Moonlight, Broken Luna Chapter 05

Shattered Moonlight, Broken Luna Chapter 05

Damien’s hand trembled around my wrist as his gaze fixed on me. He searched my face for any sign that I was lying.

If it had been spite, revenge, a cruel story I made up just to hurt him, he could have accepted it.

The one thing he could not accept was the truth.

Because if this was true, then the hatred that had fueled him for seven years, the grudge he clung to, the rage that drove him up from nothing, all of it turned into a joke.

A total bad joke.

“If you were in trouble, why did you not call me? Why did you not come find me? Why did you send that text saying you loved someone else?”

Watching him crack like this, I only found it absurd.

“Call you?” I let out a short laugh that never reached my eyes.

“Damien, that night I called you thirty-seven times.”

“Thirty-seven.”

“The first call was when the healer handed me the critical condition notice. You didn’t pick up.”

“The tenth was when I was on my knees outside my aunt’s house begging to borrow money, and she kicked me out. That one got hung up.”

“The twentieth was when I was standing in the storm, soaked through, with nowhere left to go. Your phone was turned off.”

“The last one was after I sent that text begging you for help and got ‘Get lost!’ in return.”

I took a breath as those old memories clawed their way up.

“You asked why I did not go to you. I did.”

“I stood downstairs from your apartment all night. I knew you were home, because your window stayed lit. I watched Ella’s silhouette move behind the curtains. I heard you both laughing.”

“I told myself, as long as you came down, just once, even if you said you had no money, even if you only held me and told me not to be afraid, I could grit my teeth and keep going.”

“But you never came.”

“You sent me only two words—get lost!”

Damien’s face went chalk white. His grip loosened and he staggered back two steps.

“No… I did not… I never…” He clutched his head, his voice breaking into a low, animal sound. “That night I couldn’t find my phone. I thought I lost it. Ella told me you left with that bastard Lucas. She said you texted that you were done with poor life.”

He whipped around to glare at Ella, eyes like a predator’s. “My phone! You took my phone?”

Ella was scared out of wits. She had never seen Damien like this. In her memory, he was always composed.

“Damien, please, let me explain…” Tears streamed down her face as she grabbed at his sleeve. “I loved you so much. I couldn’t stand watching you get dragged down. Her father was a money pit, you know that. I did it for your good!”

“For my good?” Damien’s hand struck her cheek with a vicious crack.

“Smack!” The slap had real weight behind it. Ella toppled to the floor, blood appearing at the corner of her mouth.

Gasps broke out around us, but no one moved to intervene.

“You did it for yourself!” Damien’s eyes were red, the hand pointing at her shaking.

“How dare you decide for me? How dare you delete that message?!”

“Do you have any idea that was life-saving money? Do you know what it meant to her?”

Damien seemed to snap, sweeping all the remaining bottles off the table.

His mind flung back to that night. He had stepped out of the shower to find his phone gone, Ella sitting on the couch, nervous, saying she didn’t know where it was.

He had shrugged it off, assuming it was lost.

The next day, campus buzzed with the rumor that Chloe had run off with Lucas, the rich playboy. He had gone confronting me and only saw my back as I handed in the withdrawal form.

He thought I was hiding, guilty. Now he knew who had really been hiding.

“Chloe…” Damien turned back to me, then dropped to his knees on the broken glass with a heavy thud.