Violinist (CENTURIES series: Book #4)

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• Learn what's toxic for you. Not everyone can see it, but even fewer have the strength to get rid of it. •

I followed Tony.

Some place in my mind, I realized what a perfect metaphor those words were for the current of our relationship. I had followed him and he had followed me, but none of us had known where we were going.

But not anymore.

As Tony steered down a separate alley and I followed him, I knew after this, I was taking back charge of my life. I had been letting the wind carry me for too long, had been numb for too long, and Tony woke me up with a pain I had somehow still inflicted on myself.

No more. As of today, I was done. I was done feeling numb, done feeling pain, done... crying.

– After today, I was pursuing only my happiness. Mason hadn't loved me, Tony couldn't love me, and I hadn't even tried to love myself.

That was all going to change today.

I held on to the violin as Tony stopped in a desolate alley with shelter from the wind and the world. There was a steam grit that was melting the snow and creating a thick fog-like air, too dense and warm to breathe. Had it not been broad daylight, I would've felt unsafe in this particular alley.

But as Tony had said, 'I was safe.'

My eyes met with his back. He was standing quietly, eyes lowered to the ground, shoulders tense. The sky was overcast and yet bright, but a storm was rolling in over us. A storm that would only affect this alley and our hearts as my hand trembled around the violin case.

"You have to take it." I broke the silence and waited for him to react, to see his back tense up and his fists clench. Instead I watched him remain every bit as still as before, standing unmoving like a statue. "Tony..."

He broke his form only to lower his head more. His hair was tied up in that loose bun and the tips of his ears were red from the cold. I watched his white exhale fill the air five times before he finally turned around and met me.

"I can't."

Can't. I squeezed my eyes shut when it felt like a stab to the heart with an icy rod. He was lying again. It wasn't that he couldn't, it was that he wouldn't.

He didn't want her, but he also couldn't love me.

He was sinking so damn fast and I had to get off. My eyes welled up with tears at the pain. I felt like I was abandoning him – leaving him behind when he needed me the most.

But two casualties were harsher than one. I knew Tony didn't want me to drown either, but telling me he couldn't take the violin was killing me in a whole other way.

He was leaving me with Blue and I didn't want to swim anymore.

"Tony," My voice trembled as I slowly walked up to him. I held the case out. "Take it."

"I don't want it."

"Christ, Tony!" The tears welled over my lashes and I shoved the trunk into his chest, harshly. "It's yours. Take it, own up to it!"