Because she knows.
She knows she’s not going home.
And soon, she’ll stop trying.
Not because I broke her.
But because deep down, she’s always wanted someone to.
It’s the sound, not the movement, that undoes me.
Not the way her knees buckle. Not the way she crumples by the dresser like a broken marionette whose strings were cut in the middle of a performance.
But the sound.
A single, choked breath, fractured and ragged like glass grinding beneath bare skin.
And then I see it?—
That fucking tear.
Trailing down her cheek like it escaped without permission.
She doesn’t sob. Doesn’t shatter loudly. No theatrics. No tantrum. Just… breaks. Quietly. As if even her suffering is something she feels the need to apologise for.
She reaches for the glass.
Not clumsily. Not like a girl desperate for attention.
Deliberately.
Her fingers wrap around the jagged shard, the sharp edge pressed white against her palm—and I move.
Fast.
Too fast.
The chair behind me screeches across the floor as I shove away from the monitors. The door slams against the wall as I rip it open. My boots are pounding down the hall and I don’t fucking care who hears.
All I can see is red.
All I can hear is her breath catching as the glass flirts with her skin.
And all I can think?—
The only fucking thought hammering through my skull?—
“She doesn’t get to leave me.”
Not even like that.
Not even in death.
My hand is on her door, wrenching it open, and she flinches when I enter like she expected a ghost and got the devil instead.
“Drop it,” I snarl, voice low, breathless, breaking. “Now.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t recognise me.
