Before I beg her to stay because I know she won’t and that’s the part that kills me most.
Chapter
Fifteen
Cassandra
Three weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen his face.
Since I’ve heard his voice.
Since he called mebutterflylike it meant something and not like it was the last thing he’d ever give me.
But he didn’t say goodbye.
Not really.
He just walked out of that kitchen—barefoot, furious, syrup-streaked and trembling—and left me standing there with sticky hands, a broken chest, and those two soft, cruel words hanging in the air like the echo of a door slamming shut.
Goodbye, butterfly.
That was it.
That was all I got.
No kiss.
No last touch.
No chance to say the thing that should’ve been said before any of the kissing, before the rooftop, before the stars, before the wreckage of breakfast spilled across the tiles.
No chance to tell him that it wasn’t just a goodbye for him.
That I’m going too.
Now he’s gone and I’m still here.
Packing my bags like a girl performing a ritual she’s already numb from. Folding my life into duffels and military-issue compartments. Pretending I’m not already halfway grieving a man who might never come home.
Or worse—might come home and never speak to me again because I lied.
I kept it from him.
I let him touch me.
Let him worship me.
Let him fuckingfall—and I didn’t say a single word until it blew up between us like a grenade.
Not until it was too late.
Not until his heart cracked open and he let me see everything he hides from the world and then he walked away, leaving those shattered pieces bleeding out behind him.
God.
I don’t even know if he’s okay.
