“I didn’t want to be alone,” I whispered. “Not again. Not when you—” I looked at her, my voice cracking. “When you’re my peace. My quiet.”
Her fingers twitched around her phone, and I swear it looked like she wanted to throw it at me. And I would’ve let her. I would’ve let her do anything.
Because I deserved all of it.
“So I chose to break you,” I continued, the confession slicing my throat raw. “Because if I broke you, then you’d have to stay. You’d have to stay because you’d be too broken to walk away.”
A tear hit the floor. I didn’t even know it fell.
“I thought—” I dragged in a shaky breath. “I thought having you broken was better than not having you at all. That, at least if I had a piece of you, I wouldn’t be alone.”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “But look at me. I lost you anyway.”
The silence between us was heavy. My lungs ached from holding in everything that still wanted to come out.
“In the worst way possible,” I finished, barely audible. “If I knew this would happen—if I knew it’d end like this—I never would’ve hurt you. I’d have just…”
I looked up at her again, blinking hard. “I’d have just let you go. In one piece. Safe. Unharmed. But I didn’t.”
I swallowed. “I was too desperate to keep you. I just didn’t want to be left behind again.”
I sat there on the floor, staring at the side of her face. The soft light from the TV flickered across her skin, catching the tears that hadn’t even dried yet. She looked so far away, like even though she was right there, wrapped up in my hoodie, she was already gone.
Gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.
Somewhere safe.
Somewhere without me.
I’d built the wall between us, brick by brick, every cruel word, every look, every time I made her flinch.
And now?
Now I was standing on the other side of it, watching her slip further and further away.
But maybe letting her slip away was better than watching her break herself because I made her tired… so tired she—
“I—” I started again, but my voice cracked halfway. “That night,” I forced out. “The pool. When I jumped in… were you trying to hurt yourself?”
Silence
The kind that stretches thin enough to snap.
She blinked at me like I’d slapped her.
My Princess: No.
She typed. Certain.
And that did something to me. It felt like a boulder was lifted off my shoulders.
My Princess: I wasn’t trying to die.
My Princess: I wanted to feel something.
My Princess: I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
My Princess: No anger, not sadness. Nothing.
