My vision tunneled. The edges of the room dissolved. I could feel my pulse in my throat, my wrists, my teeth. Every breath scraped on the way in, like my lungs didn’t want the air anymore.
This—this—was why I’d jumped. Because living inside this kind of pain felt impossible.
“I didn’t ask to live,” I said, my voice breaking apart. “I didn’t ask to stay.”
Tears spilled unchecked now, hot and humiliating. “You don’t get to punish me because you couldn’t survive loving her,” I choked out.
For a split second, something flickered across his face. Not remorse. Recognition.
I wiped my face with my sleeve, hands shaking so badly it barely helped. “Anthony stayed,” I said. “He didn’t make me earn oxygen.”
Dad scoffed. “He stayed because you cling. Because I told him to.”
“Then why does it scare you?” I shot back. “Why does it make you so angry that someone chose me?”
I was met with silence.
“I won’t stay here,” I said finally. “Not where I have to justify being alive.” As I grabbed my jacket, my limbs felt distant, like they didn’t fully belong to me anymore. “This will be the last time I ever see you.”
“She would be ashamed of you.” His parting shot found me with the precision of a sniper.
I froze midstep. Turned one final time to look at the man who used to be my dad. “No,” I said, my voice steady despite the wreckage inside me. “She would be ashamed of you for turning her love into something poisonous.”
Then I walked out already knowing I couldn’t survive another hour in that house. A piece of me snapped away so cleanly it felt surgical. A weight lifted off me that I didn’t know I’d been carrying for years.
The rain started as I hit the end of the drive—cold, sudden—soaking through my clothes. Within seconds my hair was plastered to my face, my shirt clinging uncomfortably to my skin under my jacket, every step squelching and loud in the quiet road.
The sky was a low, choking gray, the kind that pressed down on the world instead of opening over it. The wind came off the water hard and unforgiving, carrying salt and something sharp with it. The ocean to my right was no longer rhythmic or calm—it churned violently against the rocks, waves slamming into the shoreline like they were trying to tear it apart.
I felt that way too.
My chest burned with every breath, lungs pulling in air that felt too cold, too thin. My heart wouldn’t slow down. Just keptbattering against my ribs like it was trying to escape my body altogether. My hands shook uncontrollably, fingers numb and stiff, useless when I shoved them into my jacket pockets.
I carried on walking anyway.
Each step felt unsteady, like the ground might give out beneath me at any second. My legs were heavy—uncooperative—but stopping wasn’t an option. If I stopped, I’d feel everything at once. If I stopped, I might turn back.
I couldn’t survive another word from him.
The road curved along the coastline, slick and dark, reflecting headlights when they passed. Cars rushed by without slowing, tires hissing against wet asphalt.
I lifted my arm anyway, thumb out, muscles trembling with the effort. Soaked through to the bone, my teeth began to chatter—not just from the cold, but from the adrenaline bleeding out of me now that there was nothing left to fight.
Please,I thought—not to the cars. Not to anyone specific. Just—please.
The ocean roared louder as I walked, waves crashing hard enough to send spray into the air. It sounded angry. Unforgiving. Alive in a way I wasn’t sure I still was. I understood it.
I kept moving, breath ragged, chest aching with that deep, familiar pressure—the one that said I was too much, that I was wrong for wanting, wrong for needing, wrong for still hoping someone would choose me even after everything.
Anthony’s face rose unbidden in my mind. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. The way his hands steadied instead of gripping. The way he stayed.
My vision blurred, rain and tears mixing until I couldn’t tell which was which. My foot slipped on the wet pavement and I stumbled, catching myself just in time, palms scraping against the rough surface.
Pain flared bright and sharp. It grounded me.
“Okay,” I whispered hoarsely into the wind. “Okay. Just—keep going.”
Beacon Ridge wasn’t close. But it was his. And right now, that was the only place in the world that didn’t feel like it wanted me gone.
