Even as it feels like I just stepped on the last mine in my chest.
The necklace is cold against my skin.
Always cold.
Always hers.
It hangs just under my collar, a piece of her I can touch when the desert tries to eat me alive. A talisman. A noose. A fucking lifeline.
Every time it slides against my chest, I see her face. Her eyes in the chapel. Her tears at the wedding. Her voice whispering you broke us, not me—you. And Christ, she was right.
I broke us.
I can’t stay broken here. Not while she’s still out there breathing, waiting—or maybe not waiting because that’s the worst part.
Not the blast scars. Not the limp. Not even the ghosts that stalk me when the lights go out.
It’s the not knowing if she’ll still be there when I crawl back.
I tell myself she will. That Butterfly’s stubborn enough to hold on, angry enough to hate me, soft enough to still love me. That she’ll hear the hum of trucks on the street one night and know I’m inside one, coming back like I promised.
I tell myself I’ll come back because there’s no other ending that makes sense. Not for me. Not for her.
I’ll come back to her.
To her hands on my face.
To her lips saying my name like it’s a prayer.
To her tears soaking my shirt when she realises I didn’t die out there.
I’ll come back.
I’ll crawl if I have to.
I’ll bleed the whole desert dry if I have to because what’s the point of surviving if I don’t get to press her against a wall onemore time, kiss her until she screams at me, whisper mine until she breaks?
The necklace digs into my chest when I breathe too hard. I press my palm against it, fingers curled tight, like if I hold it long enough she’ll feel it too. Like she’ll know I’m still hers even when I’m half a world away.
I close my eyes. The convoy’s hum rocks through my bones. The air stinks of dust and diesel. But in my head—it’s her. Always her.
I see her standing on that bridge, moonlight catching her hair, mouth swollen from my kiss, eyes shining like I’d just given her the whole goddamn universe.
I see her in my bed, curled against my chest, muttering my name like she hates me for how much she needs me.
I see her at the wedding, shaking, furious, whispering you’ll leave me again and I whisper back now, to the necklace, to the dark, to myself—“Even if I leave, Butterfly, I’ll always come back.”
I will.
I swear it.
I’ll come back to her.
Or I won’t come back at all.
And God, I hope she’s still waiting when I do.
Chapter Thirty Three
