Her mouth opens again but I talk over her, voice breaking through my teeth.
“Wrong is letting him touch you like you’re something clean. Wrong is pretending you didn’t bleed when you left me. Wrong is every night I spent knowing you were alive somewhere and choosing not to come for you because I thought—” My breath stutters. I shove the words out anyway. “—because I thought you were better without me.”
She shakes her head violently. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I’m not,” I snarl. “I’m asking.”
The word lands heavier than anything else I’ve said.
Asking.
The searchlight cuts closer. Voices now—real ones. Not imagined. The net tightening.
I lean in, forehead pressed to hers, my voice dropping into something raw and shaking and unguarded.
“Choose me,” I say.
Her breath hitches so hard it sounds painful.
“Scar,” I whisper, desperate now, stripped bare of threats and fury. “Choose me. Please.”
Her eyes flood again. She tries to pull back, but she doesn’t go far. She can’t.
“I don’t want to be this,” she sobs. “I don’t want to ruin everything.”
I laugh—short, broken, almost hysterical.
“Everything’s already ruined,” I say. “I’m just asking you to pick what ruins you.”
She makes a small, wounded sound, like something cornered.
“I can’t go back,” she whispers.
I nod once. Sharp.
“Then don’t.”
I grip her face again, gentler this time, thumbs brushing the wet tracks on her cheeks like I’m memorising them.
“Choose me,” I repeat, voice cracking completely now. “Not the past. Not the guilt. Me. I’m right here.”
The rotors roar overhead. Too close. Too loud.
Her lips tremble. Her eyes flick toward the light, then back to me.
I don’t look away.
“I won’t survive losing you again,” I say quietly. No threat. No drama. Just truth. “So if you don’t choose me, I’ll choose for both of us.”
She inhales, sharp and broken.
“Kai…”
I press my forehead to hers one last time.
“Choose,” I whisper.
Scarlett
