"Bella," he said, gripping her hand in his so she couldn't walk away. "Bella, please. Just talk to me."
"James," she said, his name laced with frost as it fell from her lips. "Let go of me. You've made your choice."
"It was never about her," he pleaded. "Whatever you heard about Lily and me wasn't the truth. The truth is I love you. You, Bellatrix Lillith Black."
He could see her eyes widen fractionally, and if he looked really closely, he thought he could see the sparkle of tears on her lashes.
"Curse you, James," she spat, wrenching her hand from his. "Don't you see this is futile? I'm betrothed, for Salazar's sake!"
"I still haven't heard you say you don't feel the same," he said, allowing a small but hopeful smile to slip onto his lips. He took a step forward.
"Don't," she said, punctuating her words with a jab of her wand to his chest, "come a step closer."
James felt a spark of anger ignite in his chest. "Don't you see?" he almost shouted, then regained control and lowered his voice again. "We can make it through this. We always do. Together, Bella."
"No, we can't," she argued quietly. "Just look at us. We spend more time fighting than anything." She punctuated her speech with a mirthless laugh. "You want to hear me say it? Fine. I love you, James. I really do. Maybe if your smile didn't make me so happy, maybe if my heart didn't backflip every time you talk to me, no matter what you say, or maybe if you weren't so perfect, I could brush it off as something shallower. But we both know that's impossible.
"I know you think we're meant to be, but let me tell you, there is no such thing, and even if there was, we wouldn't be it. You don't know how much I wish that we could work this out somehow, but that's not going to happen."
With that, she turned on her heel, leaving James with the pieces of his heart that had been slowly chipping off and now lay shattered.