Full stop.
A judge slamming the gavel before I even got to the defense.
He turned. Paced a single step. Came back. Not rushed. Not urgent.
Measured. He didn’t look at me this time. Looked past me. Over me. Like I wasn’t worth eye contact anymore.
“You don’t get to cry. You don’t get to beg. You don’t get to ask me to understand.”
I closed my eyes. But the silence didn’t lift. If anything, it thickened.
“I gave you a chance to tell me the truth,” he said.
A beat.
“And you gave it to strangers.”
My stomach twisted. My fingernails dug into the blanket at my waist. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“But you did.”
His voice didn’t rise. Didn’t bend.
It brokemeinstead.
He stepped closer. Just close enough that I could feel the space he took up. That I could feel the oxygen bending around him.
“You want mercy?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My tongue felt like ash.
His voice dropped again, almost gentle. “Then you shouldn’t have made me choose between you and the truth.”
That was what gutted me. Not the accusation. But thetruthof it. I bit my lip until I tasted blood.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t stop me. He just stood there. The man I loved. The man I left. The man who never stopped knowing I was his.
Until I looked up again. And when I did?—
He smiled.
Not soft. Not cruel. Just the quiet satisfaction of someone watching something he owned stop fighting its leash.
“You’re not mine,” I whispered. The words broke apart on my tongue. But I said them anyway.
He leaned forward. Not fast. Just enough to steal the space between us. Enough to make sure I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear him. Couldn’t pretend this wasn’t what I wanted—what I feared.
His voice was low. Intimate. Coiled like silk over a blade. “And you never stopped beingmine.”
That’s all he said. But it landed like a collar tightening. Like a hand closing over the back of my neck. Not violent. Not tender. Just... certain.
Then he turned. And walked away. No rush. No final look. He didn’t slam the door. Didn’t say goodbye. He just left. Because he didn’t need to stay to be present. His absence still tasted like iron on my tongue.
They didn’t keep me. That was the first surprise. No restraints. No security. No nurse entering the room to tell me I’d lost my rights. Just a doctor with too-neutral eyes, a clipboard, and Loyal.
He stood by the window, arms behind his back, posture perfect. Like a man attending a funeral. Not mine.
Theirs.
