She repeats it like a mantra.
She stood up to her mother.She ended the control.She walked away from a place that threatened to swallow her whole.She chose herself.
So why does it feel like she left something unfinished?
Her chest tightens, and she presses her palm there, breathing through it.Love isn’t supposed to feel like this, like something you abandon to survive.
All day, she has blocked the thought of Callum from her mind.It’s time to forget him, heal from him, and yet her heart is breaking, and tonight, you could add a huge dose of loneliness to that thought.
She misses him.And yet he chose the castle over her.Time to move on.Only her fragile organ is refusing to listen.
In the two days since she arrived in New York, she’s cleaned house, met with her new manager, and even spent some time in the studio she rented.But now, it’s evening, and she’s lonely.
She thinks about her father out on the road without her mother at his side.Was that one of the reasons he’d gotten into trouble and cheated on his wife?Being alone on the road?
A knock sounds at the door.
Isla freezes.
Her first thought is of her mother.Her second is worse.
Hope.
She stands slowly, heart pounding, and crosses the room.She tells herself not to expect anything.Not to read meaning into coincidence.Not to open the door looking for rescue.
She opens it anyway.
Callum stands in the hallway.
No jacket.No castle.No hesitation.
Just him.
For a heartbeat, neither of them speaks.
He looks different, rumpled, travel-worn, eyes bright with something that looks like fear and resolve tangled together.Not the man who hesitated.The man who moved.
Her breath leaves her in a rush.
“You came,” she says, the words barely audible.
“Yes,” Callum replies.“I did.”
The simplicity of it undoes her.
She steps back without thinking, letting him inside.The door clicks shut behind him, sealing them back into the quiet, but now it feels charged, alive.
“I didn’t know if you would,” Isla admits.
“I didn’t know if I deserved to,” he says honestly.
They stand there, the space between them heavy with everything they didn’t say the two nights before.
“I read your letter,” Callum continues.“About five times before I stopped shaking.”
Isla’s throat tightens.“I meant every word.”
“I know,” he says.“That’s why I’m here.”
