You'll be the Death of Me

Chapter 94

Chapter 94

Graham shook as he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He could feel Wamil watching his every move and he was nervous to even take a breath. What he did, what they had done last night it was a mistake. And the weight of it was bearing down on him with the morning light.

"Graham?"

Graham closed his eyes at the uneasiness in Wamil's voice. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell her what he was thinking: that this was all a mistake, a moment of weakness on his part. No, that would be cruel and the last thing he wanted was to be cruel to her.

"Graham," Wamil repeated, coming over to him and placing a concerned hand on his shoulder.

"I have to go," he said solemnly, unable to bring himself to look at her.

There was a long silence. "That's it?" Wamil asked tearfully.

Graham swallowed and forced himself to look at her. "I can't stay here any longer. I fear I've stayed too long as it is." She didn't understand, or maybe she did understand. It was hard to know what the girl in front of him was thinking.

"You don't have to go."

There it was. He knew this was coming, what he didn't know was how he would feel when it came. He was going to be sick. Panic was now flooding through him. What he had done had opened a door, a door he thought had closed the night he took the Mark. In this moment right now he could choose a different path, he could choose Wamil.

"I do," he whispered.

"No," Wamil pleaded, shaking her head and moving so he had to look at her. "You do not. You could stay here with me and we could talk to someone and fix this. You do not have to let that Mark define you. We could—"

"Please don't make this harder," Graham begged, the cracks in his foundation already splitting further.

"Why not?" Wamil challenged defiantly. "Maybe it should be harder for you. Doing what's right isn't easy, it's hard. It's a hard choice each moment of every day. Do you think I'm not scared? I'm not stupid and naïve enough to not be frightened of what is coming. You offered me a way out, a chance to be safe. Do you know why I burned those damn papers? It wasn't just because of you, it was because some part of me wanted them."

Graham took a step back as she cornered him. "I am choosing what is right, and I know it's scary, but I will be here. We can go down this road together and, if it ends quickly, it ends, but at least we were down the road we wanted to be on."

Graham looked down at their hands intertwined. She was holding onto him so tight he was starting to not be able to feel the tips of his fingers.

"Being with you feels right," he murmured quietly. "Loving you feels right." Wamil nodded. "But choosing you, choosing... everything else—" he settled on "—doesn't feel right." Wamil's hand dropped away from his. "I gave Draco and Graces my word. I promised her that I would marry her. I—"

"You don't love her!" Wamil scowled. "I doubt she wants to marry someone who is in love with someone else. I—"

"She doesn't love me and she's in love with someone else," Graham said patiently. "We are not discussing marriage because we want to be married." Graham swallowed. "We are discussing marriage because a time is coming when her last name will be her death sentence. And I have offered her my last name as salvation."

Wamil fell silent at his words and stared at him waiting for more.

"I offered it, they didn't ask, I offered."