“But an open door in a fire is—” I start, voice shaky.
“Exactly,” Christian says, cutting me off gently.
A way out.
A last chance.
A risk.
But none of that even matters. It will never matter. Because to him, all I am is oxygen. And oxygen never puts out a fire.
There’s nothing heroic about being the open door if all you’re doing is making the fire worse.
I swallow hard, gaze flicking to the poem again.
“There is no peace in Kai,” Christian says suddenly. “Just rage. Fire. And it looks a lot like genius until you get close enough to feel the heat.”
I look at him. Really look at him. His expression isn’t cruel or bitter. It’s just tired. It’s the expression of someone who’s been watching the same fire burn for too long, hoping it might go out on its own.
“But he wasn’t always like that, right?” I ask quietly.
“No,” he says, his jaw tightening. “But he was always heading there.”
I don’t know why that unsettles me so much. Maybe it’s the way he says it.
The way she makes it seem like it was destined from the start.
Like there was never a version of Kai that didn’t break.
I stare at the floor, something uneasy twisting inside me. Because I don’t know if I believe that. I don’t know if Icanbelieve that.
Was he always meant to be this way? Or did something happen that influenced it?
Did hefall, or was hepushed?
Because a person does not turn cold without reason. A fire does not burn itself out unless something has smothered it first.
And a tree that is not watered does not just forget how to grow, it just learns to reach for the storm instead.
You don’t wake up one day and decide to be angry. You don’t justchooseto shut people out. That’s something learned.
And when you’ve been let down enough times, when every outstretched hand has turned to dust in your palm, you stop reaching for them at all.
No one is born with ruin in their bones.
No one comes into this worldmeantfor destruction.
And no one—no one—is meant to be a storm.
I stand and cross to the window.
The sun’s starting to set now, casting a warm orange glow over the garden below. Everything’s golden and soft, like the world has finally decided to be kind, for just a second.
I stare at it numbly.
Christian steps up beside me, following my gaze.
“It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” he says after a beat. And then he exhales, almost smiling. “Endings can be beautiful, too.”
