diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index 7cd0399..7f86bfd 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -3573,8 +3573,11 @@
 
         /* UTF-16 code pair: */
         if (e - q < 2) {
+            q -= 2;
+            if (consumed)
+                break;
             errmsg = "unexpected end of data";
-            startinpos = (((const char *)q) - 2) - starts;
+            startinpos = ((const char *)q) - starts;
             endinpos = ((const char *)e) - starts;
             goto utf16Error;
         }