“You know what hurt the most, Dorian?” I ask, barely more than a breath. “More than seeing you in her bed? More than the lies?”
He waits. Silent. Braced.
“Your absence,” I say. “The promise you broke. The stupid hope that you’d come for me.”
Something in him cracks. I see it in his eyes. But I can’t stay here.
Not now. Not when the pain is this loud.
And so, I walk away—before the rest of the monsters catch up with me.
* * *
Dorian
I watch her going up the stairs—slow, but steady. She doesn’t turn. And the silence she leaves behind is unbearable.
I stand frozen, one hand gripping the edge of the banister, the other clenched useless at my side. I want to run after her. To say something, anything. But the look she gave me before turning away—it’s still lodged in my chest like a blade.
The promise you broke. The stupid hope that you’d come for me.
I collapse on the edge of the sofa and bury my face in my hands.
“God. Am I too late?”
Her words circle me like smoke, clinging to everything, poisoning the air. I close my eyes, but I still see her—cracked open, vulnerable, voice raw with betrayal. I let her down. I wasn’t there.
I stand and pace the kitchen, my hands clenched at my sides. Fury simmers under my skin—not just at Leah, not just at myself, but at how easy it all was for everything to fall apart. A few photos. A lie, whispered at the right time. A phone answered by the wrong person.
Seven weeks. Seven weeks in a hospital.
She didn’t say why. Didn’t tell me what happened. But I saw it in her eyes—it was something terrible.
And I didn’t know.
I didn’t even try hard enough to know. I just… gave up.
Worse—I believed Leah.
I hear my own breathing, heavy, jerky, interrupted by guilt. Something inside me tightens to the point of pain. Her words still echo in my mind with sharp clarity"What hurt most? Your absence."
The weight of that truth crushes me.
How could I have believed it?
How could I not have known, that something was wrong?
My eyes flick toward the phone still lying on the counter.Leah.Her name might as well be etched into the glass. A quiet, crawling hatred moves up my spine. She lied to me. She manipulated me. She stole something I didn’t even realize I was losing—my chance to be there for Della when she needed me.
And I let her.
A wave of nausea rolls through me.
How do I tell Della that while she was alone in a hospital bed, I was tying myself to the woman who helped destroy us? That I was signing away what we had—for numbers on a page and a lie I convinced myself was closure?
I pull out my phone, the bile still thick in my throat. My fingers hover for a second, then I type a message to David:
Start the process to dissolve the partnership on all projects with Leah. Quietly but immediately. We’ll talk details when I get back.
