“Was any of it real?” I whispered to him with a soft, sad smile as he tried to stop the blood pouring from my wound. Now that it was all over, I wanted to know if there was anything but sad smiles, or if we were all so tainted by our pasts they couldn’t be anything else. I wanted to know if the love affair had maimed him too, or if it was just me who was lying here, draped in desolation. “Every bit of it,” Raphael sobbed, tears dripping down his face
