She gave me one last smile, sharp enough to draw blood, before turning toward the door, her heels clicking softly against the floor as she left me standing there, gutted, shaking, and alone.
Alessia paused at the door, her hand resting lightly on the frame. For a heartbeat, she looked back at me, that same polished calm still painted across her face, but beneath it, something colder, darker, gleamed in her eyes.
“You know,” she said softly, her voice almost gentle and that made it worse. “There’s something you should understand before I go.”
I said nothing. My throat was too tight, my chest too raw.
Her smile curved again, slow and cruel. “He didn’t love you, Edwina. He hated you.”
The air left my lungs.
“Do you know why?” she went on, her tone quiet, deliberate, each word striking with surgical precision. “Because of you, he lost his sister.”
My head shook before I even realized it, the denial spilling out on instinct. “No—”
“Yes,” she said, cutting through my protest sharpness of a blade. “The accident,” she said softly, her tone dripping withpoison. “Remember? You were there too. And guess who pulled you out that night? Guess who had no idea his sister was in the wreckage while he was saving you?” Alessia’s smile curved. “He couldn’t save her. He saved you instead. You’re his biggest mistake, Edwina, his guilt, his hatred, the thing he can’t forgive himself for.”
My pulse roared in my ears. The room tilted again. “You’re lying.”
Her smile didn’t waver. “No, little girl. I’m telling you the truth. You were the reason she died. He saved you instead. And he’s never forgiven himself for it. You think he came back into your life because of love?” She laughed softly, a sound that scraped through me. “No. He wanted revenge. To destroy you the same way you destroyed him.”
Tears blurred my vision, the edges of the room folding inward, my stomach twisting so violently I thought I might collapse.
“And as I see,” Alessia murmured, glancing me up and down with quiet satisfaction, “he already has.”
Her words hung there, poisonous and absolute. Then she turned, her heels clicking against the floor, each step pulling the air out of the room until the door closed behind her with a soft, final sound.
I stood frozen in the silence she left behind, her voice still echoing in my head, tearing through every memory, every touch, every word Hayden had ever given me, until all that remained was the hollow, unbearable question she’d left behind.
The silence after she left was heavier than the storm.
I slid down the hall until I was on the floor, my back against the wall, my knees drawn tight to my chest. My hands shook against my face as sobs tore through me, violent, unrestrained, the kind that left no room for breath. Every word Alessia had spoken echoed through me, sharp and merciless, cutting into every place I had once felt safe. She hadn’t just humiliated me;she had gutted me, hollowed me out until I wasn’t sure what was left beneath the ruin.
His love—or his revenge. I didn’t know which truth hurt more.
The thought coiled inside me, spreading through my veins with the slow burn of poison. Had it all been a lie? Every touch, every kiss, every whispered promise in the dark, were they all just ghosts of something built on hate? Had he ever loved me, or had I been nothing more than the collateral damage of his grief? The girl he couldn’t save. The girl he should have left to die.
I pressed my palms to my temples, trying to force the thoughts out, but they only came harder, faster. The memory of his hands on me. The way he said my name, the way his voice broke when he told me I mattered. God, how easy it was to believe him. To let him destroy every wall I’d built and still call it love.
And yet, even now, even knowing what I knew, I still loved him. That was the cruelest part of all.
Love burned in me still, wild, reckless, unforgiving. I loved Hayden with every broken piece of myself, and that love was a knife twisting deeper with every breathEven if he hated me, even while my anger burned through me, something fiercer lived beneath it, something I couldn’t tear out no matter how hard I tried. I still loved him, and because of that, I could not be the blade at his throat. To stay would ruin him; to fight would destroy him. Alessia had been right about one thing: a single whisper, a single photograph, a single careless breath could turn his life to ash. I refused to become the instrument of that ruin.
But I couldn’t face my friends either. Not with Aster’s sharp eyes or Gwen’s gentle concern. They’d see it, the wreckage inside me, the pieces of a girl who had fallen for the wrong man and lost everything. I didn’t have the strength to lie, not this time. I needed silence. I needed to disappear before I collapsed completely.
My hands trembled as I reached for my phone, the screen blurring through my tears. I dialed the number I hadn’t called in months, not since Christmas, when I’d promised my father I was fine, that I was building the future he’d always wanted for me.
The call connected after a single ring. His voice was the same deep, familiar in a way that made my chest ache. “Edwina?”
For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. Because if I told the truth, I would fall apart, and if I lied, it would finish what was left of me. Finally, the words came, small and hoarse and broken. “Dad… I’m tired. I want to come home.”
There was a pause. Then the sound of his sigh, heavy but not surprised. “We’ll make arrangements,” he said quietly. “Come back, Edwina.”
I ended the call before I could change my mind, before I could beg him to tell me not to, to let me stay, to give me a reason to fight for the man I should have never loved. My hands still shook as I pulled up Gwen’s chat, then Aster’s. My tears blurred the words as I typed the same message to them both:
Edwina:
Something urgent came up with my family. I have to go.
