Austin found Julie standing in the back of the library, bent over a table covered in all kinds of documents. She looked up when she heard the door open and smiled at him. He felt sick.
"Hey," he said. "What are you doing?"
"Preparing the festival. Ellis keeps me busy. What about you?" She had averted her gaze back to the table, moving around sheets of paper. Perhaps if she had looked, she would have seen the guilt on his face. Perhaps that's why she didn't look.
"I need to tell you something."
She did glance up then, her busy hands laying down their labour for the moment. "You smell like her," she said. There was no judgment in her voice, and that only made him feel worse.
"Nothing happened," he said. "It was just a kiss. Nothing more." He stepped closer to her but she stepped back, raising a hand.
"Tell me what happened."
His brow creased. "It really meant nothing."
She only looked at him, and perhaps for the first time ever, he had no clue what she was thinking.
"We were in the school –"
"Why?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Why were you in the school?"
"She was following one of Camden's classes again."
"And you?"
His frown deepened. "Well, I guess I... I guess I was just checking in on her."
Her eyes flitted back down to the table, and his heart contracted. "Alright," she said, lifting her gaze back to him. "Then what?"
"Everyone else left and we talked." He sighed and cast his eyes down. He couldn't bear to watch the disillusionment creep into her eyes. Or perhaps he couldn't bear to see that she wasn't surprised at all. "I don't know how it happened, or who started it, but it happened."
It remained so silent his pounding heart seemed deafening. He lifted his face. Her hands were still holding a sheet of paper, her nails making tiny wrinkles – her too tight grip the only indication that his confession got to her at all. Her pale eyes bore into his. They were such a contrast to Ryleigh's charcoal gaze. Julie was many things, but not intimidating. But then she didn't mean to intimidate, merely to study.
"She pushed me away," Austin said. "We argued. We both said things we probably shouldn't have. And then I came straight here."
"What did you say?"
He shook his head. "I don't even rightly recall. It went so fast. But I guess she said I cared about her more than I said I did – knew I did – and that that wasn't fair to you. And I denied it, because I don't – I don't care about her. Not like that. It's just the mate bond. And then she said some things about us that weren't true."
"Things like what?"
"Really, Julie –"
"Things like what, Austin?"
Julie was never this demanding. He didn't know her like this. But then he didn't know himself like this either. "That we're only together out of convenience and that we'll fall apart the moment it gets hard," he said. "She doesn't know what she's talking about." He reached for her again, but she pulled back.
She lowered herself down on her chair, staring pensively down at her lap. Austin stood quietly in front of her. He imagined standing in front of a tribunal, awaiting judgment.
"She's very observant, have you noticed that?" she said.
"Ryleigh? I guess so. But she's wrong about this."
Julie nodded, the paper in her hold crumbling around the edges. Austin hoped it wasn't anything important. "Is she?"
"What?" He breathed the word.
"When I was away the past two weeks... I don't think we've ever been apart that long since we started our relationship. It gave me time to think." She fell silent and focused on a point in the distance. "We make so much sense, you and I. Neither of us are the type to open ourselves up to strangers, and we'd already been friends for years. It was a natural development. We both needed someone in our lives and we were right there. And we never got a chance to question ourselves because we were never apart. Until now."
"Fine, so it might have been convenient, but that doesn't mean it wasn't right."
"I know," she said. "It felt right."
"It feels right."
Her eyes moved over the table. "Since Ryleigh has come into your life, I've been thinking about the decisions we've made over the years, and I cannot help but think that..." She drew her bottom lip between her lips. "It was right," she said, after a silence so severe Austin feared he'd lost his hearing. "For what it was, it was right. We were good lovers. It was only when we tried to be more that things started to go awry."
"We never had any problems until Ryleigh showed up."
"We couldn't afford to. Everyone was already against us."
He shook his head. "You can say what you want, but we've been good for each other. We've had each other's backs, we've had fun, we've had everything we needed."
"Except fate. I see how you look at her, Aus."
"I barely even like her! I can't help what the mate bond makes me feel, but I promise you I'm not in love with her."
"I believe you," she said, nodding. "But why did you go to the school today? Why do you keep spending this much time with her? Why do you continuously check up on her?"
"I'm still responsible for her. You know that."
"Seth and Nate aren't going to let her get away."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Whatever he said only made it worse, despite his best efforts. If it continued much longer, there'd be nothing left to salvage. "She's ditched them once before," he said. "She can do it again."
"Maybe. But why do you feel so guilty?"
"What?"
"About the kiss. If it was really just the mate bond, what does it matter? I understand. I've had a fated mate. I know what that attraction is like. It was to be expected. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. But yet here you are, full of remorse."
"Because it still shouldn't have happened."
"But you said yourself it was an effect of the mate bond. You can't fight fate. You have to lose at some point. That hardly needs apologising. So what are you sorry for? Not that it happened, clearly." She paused, took a deep breath. "Maybe you're sorry because it did mean something."
"No," he said. "No, Julie, I swear –"
"Stop." She got up and retrieved another chair from a different table. She put it down beside Austin. "Sit down."
"Why –"
"Just sit down."
He sighed and sat. "What?"
"You need to be honest. Not with me, but with yourself."
"I am being honest. Goddess, I'm doing my best here, Julie."
"I know. Just listen. How hard did you argue when I said I was leaving for two weeks?"
"Well, I –"
"No, that was a rhetorical question. You didn't. Or hardly, in any case. And then you ran out to save your mate. Yes, I know. You were linked. You had to. I'm not judging. I was gone two weeks, and when I came back, you were sitting with her in the hall. Looked pretty cosy. Yes, I know. She was just tired and you were looking out for her. Ridge has told me about the time you spent in the infirmary while she was sick. I know – your proximity helped her. But you wanted to be near her, too. And when I had to cancel our plans because Ellis sent me to town? You were disappointed, sure, but you didn't mind that much. Nor when our new plans got cancelled when Ellis sent you on patrol. We shrugged it off."
He opened his mouth to argue, but slammed it shut again. He didn't know Julie like this. He didn't know how to placate her. He didn't know if there was anything that could.
"I'm not saying you're in love with her," Julie said. "I'm not saying she's what's come between us. I do think, however, that her arrival has laid bare some of our deficiencies. And they're the kind of deficiencies that everyone could see – everyone but us."
"You're letting them get to you." He wanted to get up from that damn chair; wanted to wrap his arms around her; wanted to tell her everyone was wrong, most of all Ryleigh; wanted to say everything would be alright. He didn't.
"What if they're right? If we're really together because it's easy, then how will we survive if it does get hard? If we're to mate, it will get hard. Every relationship does. All of that is to say..." She drew in a deep breath. "If we were to mate, I think we would regret it."
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A/N: And so they end. But maybe they never really had a chance to begin with. Did you think Julie would be the one to end it?
Thank you for reading!