I stared at the message for a long time before pressing send, my pulse pounding in my ears. I didn’t tell them the truth, that I wasn’t just leaving the city. I was leaving everything. Them. Him. This life that had become both dream and nightmare. And I wasn’t coming back.
But I couldn’t write that. I couldn’t even think it without breaking apart completely. So I left it unsaid, a half-truth to protect them from the storm that had already swallowed me whole.
My body shook as I set the phone down, my chest hollow, my soul unraveling. I was leaving Hayden. Leaving the only manwho had ever made me feel alive. The man who had made me believe I could be loved and then shattered me with the truth that maybe I had only ever been a means to an end. His love, his hate, his revenge, they were all tangled into one unbearable thing, and I had walked straight into it.
And as I curled into myself, sobs tearing through what little strength I had left, one truth cut sharper than the rest.
I loved him. And I would never forgive him for making me walk away.
Hayden
I called her again.
For the third time, then the fourth, my thumb stabbing the screen harder than necessary, the sound of unanswered rings slicing through the silence of my car. Nothing. Straight to voicemail. The fifth time I tried, my voice broke when the line clicked dead.
“Edwina, pick up,” I muttered, my hand raking through my soaked hair, my jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Please, my Flare. Just… pick up.”
No answer.
I texted instead.
Hayden:
Talk to me. Please.
Another.
Hayden:
Where are you?
Then harsher, frantic.
Hayden:
Don’t shut me out like this. Don’t fucking do this.
Still nothing.
By the time I pulled up outside her building, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, a mockery of the storm still tearing through me. I climbed the steps two at a time, my pulse hammering, and slammed my thumb against her doorbell. Once. Twice. Again and again until the sound of it felt like madness.
Silence.
I pressed my forehead against the door, the wood cold against my skin. The apartment beyond was dark, no light seeping through the cracks, no sound of her footsteps, no movement. Nothing. Empty.
My stomach twisted with a dread so sharp it hollowed me out. Something was wrong. I pulled back, swore under my breath, and scrolled through my contacts until I hit the name I needed. The call connected, and Aster’s voice came through, groggy, cautious.
“Professor Stone?”
“It’s Hayden,” I said quickly, my voice rough, uneven. “Is Edwina with you? Do you know where she is?”
A pause followed, the kind that confirmed everything I already feared.
“No,” Aster said, her voice uncertain. “She said something came up with her family, that it was urgent. She’s leaving the city. She told us not to worry.”
But I didn’t believe it. Not for a second.
Because I knew her. I knew the look in her eyes when she tried to push me away. And I knew, with a certainty that tore through me, that she wasn’t coming back.
