I shot up, now as angry and frustrated as him. I had a feeling that if I stayed, we'd both snap. In an undertone, I murmured, "This isn't over. I won't give up on you."

"I've given up on you," he said back, voice also soft. "Love fades. Mine has."

I stared at him in disbelief. All this time, he'd never phrased it like that. His protests had always been about some greater good, about the remorse he felt over being a monster or how it had scarred him from love. I've given up on you. Love fades. Mine has.

Dimitri whispered the words, but it felt like he had shouted them. I could tell he was on the verge of losing control. And me? Had I ever even possessed it?

I've given up on you.

Those words were awful. The thought of Dimitri giving up on me was unbearable. But not as unbearable as the alternative.

If it was simply Dimitri fighting the connection I persistently claimed we had because of his guilt, there would still be hope.

But what if he just didn't love me anymore? Or never had? That was a whole other story. That would mean our love, our connection, our memories, would fade to ash, leaving nothing in its path. What once was strong and beautiful; life altering, faded into nothing but dust.

He loved me. He had. I say the words to myself in my head, but nothing makes sense anymore. I analyze our past. The gym. The cabin. The chapel, where he'd held me while I sobbed. The cave, where my heart had shattered.

Suddenly, I feel a pain in my chest, worse than I'd ever felt before.

Worse than when I'd watched Dimitri fall into someone else's grasp. Worse than when he'd been turned into a Strigoi. Worse than when I'd plunged the stake into his heart, watching him fall down into the dark water, certain that I had lost him forever.

Worse than everything I'd been through because through it all, he had loved me. Or at least I'd believed he had. His love had been there, even when he had not. But now?

All that was left of that love was my unconditional love for someone who didn't love me anymore.

I see his eyes soften, like maybe he knows how much he's hurt me. I doubt it. I can't believe that of all times, now is when I hear Viktoria Belikova's voice ring in my mind.

"You act like you loved my brother, but there's no way you could have—no way you could really understand love!"

Maybe she was right. She hadn't known what it was either, though. What she and Rolan had had wasn't love. I knew she would learn that, someday. But had I known? I had claimed to know what it was all my life, and look had wear it had gotten me. Maybe it just wasn't real.

Or maybe, Dimitri was the one who didn't know what love was. I'd thought before that it was something you lived and died for. I'd lived for it. I'd fought for it. And now, I was dying for it—figuratively.

Maybe I did know what love was. Maybe that's why I felt like this—broken. Because of love. And Dimitri? He felt nothing.

Maybe we both knew what it was. And maybe we both had truly loved each other. Maybe what he said was true: he just couldn't love anyone anymore. He just couldn't love me. Being Strigoi had killed that part of him.

And if that was the case, I was certain a part of me would die to.

Love fades. Mine has.

Over and over, those words ring in my mind, making it difficult to breathe, or walk, or do anything except curl in a ball and let my never ending agony have me. Walk away, my common sense tells me. Or crawl. Whichever came first.

The possibility of my body going completely limp was suddenly very real. He's gotten what he wanted. He'd broke me. Utterly and completely to pieces. "I'm sorry, Rose," he murmurs.

I want so badly to fall to pieces in front of him, like I had before. I want him to hold me, and let me sob. I don't care what he does to me after that; as long as I have that embrace. It takes every ounce of my being to keep standing and not fall to the floor, hoping he would catch me.

His guardians are looking at me with pitying expressions, and I know what they see: a pathetic girl in love. Not a badass guardian who had slain Strigoi or even a girl who had enough self respect to walk away. For a second, the pain dims. That is not me. But it is. Dimitri Belikov has made sure of that.

The sudden relief passes as quickly as it came. The service is departing, and the back row of the church are watching; waiting. I decide then that I won't give them that satisfaction. I won't endanger Dimitri's fragile reputation, and I won't be the girl who needs some guy to survive.

I am sure he can see the waterworks begin to escalate as I practically run out of the church. Each step is agony. But I make it.