- 35 -

AURORA

Sometimes, the sky falls on your head and the ground slips beneath your feet. And that is when you know you have nowhere to escape.

I have read this somewhere I could not remember. But the feelings were nowhere close to what I was feeling right now. I felt like someone has doused me into a pool of cold water, and I was counting every second inside my head until I'd stop breathing.

Someone squeezed my arm, a feminine touch and probably Sam's, and then a whiff of male cologne hit my nose. I didn't bother to see the people present in the room because everything and everyone has evaporated by now except for that one figure—that one man—I had loved and hated with every fiber of my being.

The epicenter of all my happiness and grief.

Dazedly, I walked up to him.

"Aurora, listen to me. Just—"

My palm stuck hard against his cheek with a resounding splat, but Marco didn't coil. Maybe he kinda expected it. Instead, he turned his head slowly from where the blow had bowed it.

"The first th