Penultimate chapter, I've written the next one already so it will be up tonight
Peter roused from his sleep, a smile forming when he heard her steady, halcyon, breaths, so shallow and undisturbed, and a bitter reminder of the panicked state she'd found herself in the night before.
He took advantage of her slumber, pulling her limp body closer to his, a face full of hair in his face but he didn't care. In his mind, that space between them was now non-existent, his body naively intertwined with hers, he felt as though nothing else mattered, they'd get through it, they had to.
The kiss he placed against her shoulder lasted for longer than it needed to, partly a continuation of his apology, his guilt, and partly because seeing her sleeping there, in his bed reminded him of how far they'd come and how much shit they'd already waded through to get here.
She waited until she was sure she'd heard the door slam shut, and his footsteps fade before she opened her eyes and let out the sigh she'd been restraining herself from expelling for hours. It said so much more than frustration, it was pain, anger, hurt, confusion all rolled into one splitting ache that coursed throughout her whole bloody body. Her mind shifted back to last night and she remembered the decision she'd made, a choice she'd never wanted to be confronted with again.
Those piercing blue eyes look suddenly so vulnerable, bereft of their usual cockiness, their spark. In the sombre, amber light of the small, inconspicuous restaurant they've found themselves in, lives are changing, lies unravelling and hearts breaking. It kills to have to do it, to have to be so selfish and yet so selfless, to see his eyes narrow, they'd be wincing, if eyes could. His lip's quiver and she knows she must do it before he consumes her, before she gives into the love she knows is so beautifully right and yet somehow so cruelly wrong. Each word that leaves her lips is another stab to an already festering wound; he can read her like a book, he understand her inside out, their minds are so passionately interlinked it feels almost alien to them at times, and yet he find's himself rooted to the spot, unable to bring himself to chase after to her, to tell he's not a fool and no matter what she says he knows she is lying and he won't accepted because they can no longer fight it. He let's her go.
Time hasn't really moved on, she can recreate those moments just as vividly in her head as she could the day he died, the day she lost her Liam. Her heart has been stuck in a rut ofmorality with her mind ever since, neither edging ahead. She hates the choice she made, the consequences it had, the way even though she knows it wasn't really her fault, she can't accept it. And she hates the way she knows it was the right thing to do, to break it off with him.
It's only when she hears Peter's keys turning in the door that she faces reality once more, and braces herself in preparation for what she must do, for breaking his heart, and consequently her own.