“No.”

She barely breathed it. It took a few seconds for it to take effect, and as it did his face, hopeful, nervous, and expecting all at once, crumpled. Confused at first, then wrinkled in pain.

The word had been but a whisper, but the force it had bestowed upon him was the sonic blast following a star’s implosion.

She was immediately overwhelmed with the temptation to cradle his head in her arms, whispering fiercely that she hadn’t meant it. But she knew she could not. She knew the truth before the word had settled on her lips.

She watched as his eyes drowned in tears. Seeing his heart break decimated her own. She deserved every bit of hell she would henceforth encounter; would scorn any happiness, if it would atone in any minute way for the destruction she had so cruelly placed in his life.

She slipped the ring from her finger and handed it back to him. He stared at her waist, breathing raggedly. He was a star imploding upon himself, and she was not sure she could stand to see the agony of the blast.