Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

in the end. Most of all, I didn’t want to be the reason Patchlost everything he’d worked for. If the archangels were looking for an excuse to banish him forever, I was only making it easy.
    Patch stared at me like he couldn’t tell if I was serious. “That’s it? You want out? You got your turn to explain yourself, which I don’t buy, by the way, but now that it’s my turn, I’m supposed to just swallow your decision and walk out?”
    I hugged my elbows and turned away. “You can’t force me to stay in a relationship I don’t want.”
    “Can we talk about this?”
    “If you want to talk, tell me what you were doing at Marcie’s last night.” But Patch was right. This wasn’t about Marcie. This was because I was scared and upset with the deal that fate and circumstance had cut both of us.
    I turned back to see Patch drag his hands down his face. He gave a short, unamused laugh.
    “If I’d been at Rixon’s last night, you’d wonder what was going on!” I flung back.
    “No,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I trust you.”
    Afraid I’d lose my resolve if I didn’t act immediately, I smacked the heels of my hands against his chest, knocking him back a step. “Go,” I said, tears making my voice rough. “I have other things I want to do with my life. Things that don’t involve you. I have college and future jobs. I’m not going to throw it all away on something that was never meant to be.”
    Patch flinched. “Is this what you really want?”
    “When I kiss my boyfriend, I want to know he feels it!”
    As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I didn’t want to hurt him—I just wanted to get this moment over with as quickly as possible before I unraveled and broke down sobbing. But I’d gone too far. I saw him stiffen. We stood face-to-face, both of us breathing hard.
    Then he strode out, yanking the door shut behind him.
    Once the door was closed, I collapsed against it. Tears burned at the back of my eyes, but not a single drop fell. I had too much frustration and anger clashing around inside me to feel much of anything else, but I suspected in a way that caused a sob to catch in my throat, that five minutes from now, when everything else had dropped away and I realized the full impact of what I’d done, I’d feel my heart breaking.

CHAPTER
3

    I LOWERED MYSELF ONTO THE CORNER OF MY bed, staring into space. The anger was beginning to wear off, but I almost wished I could stay caught up in its fever forever. The emptiness it left behind ached more than the sharp, fiery pain I’d felt when Patch walked out. I tried to make sense of what had just happened, but my thoughts were a disjointed mess. Our shouted words rang in my ears, but they echoed helter-skelter, like I was recalling a bad dream rather than an actual conversation.
    Had I really broken up with him? Had I really meant for it to be permanent? Was there no way around fate or, more immediately, the archangels’ threats? By way of an answer, my stomach twisted, threatening to be sick.
    I hurried to the bathroom and knelt over the toilet, my ears clanging and my breathing coming out shallow and choppy. What had I done? Nothing permanent, definitely nothing permanent. Tomorrow we’d see each other again and everything would go back to the way it had been. This was just a fight. A stupid fight. This wasn’t the end. Tomorrow we’d realize how petty we’d been and apologize. We’d put this behind us. We’d make up.
    I dragged myself to my feet and turned on the sink faucet. Wetting a washcloth, I pressed it to my face. My mind still felt like it was unraveling faster than a spool of thread, and I squeezed my eyes closed to make the motion stop.
But what about the archangels?
I asked myself again. How could Patch and I have a normal relationship when they were constantly watching us? I froze. They could be watching me right now. They could be watching Patch. Trying to tell if he’d crossed the line. Looking for any excuse to