He didn’t let me finish. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, jaw tight.
“You’ve done enough.”
My stomach dropped before I even saw what he meant.
She was there.
Standing by the fountain with Jennie, Layla, and Aly. All of them were chatting like nothing was wrong, their laughter echoing across the courtyard.
But her.
She wasn’t laughing. Just listening, with a small smile on her face, like she was trying to blend in. Eyes tired. Hand cradled against the cast.
And draped over her frame—
Myjacket.
The one she took that night. The one I forgot was even missing because I was too busy trying to forget how her body shook when I wrapped it around her.
It hung on her loosely, the sleeves too long, swallowing her hands. But she wore it like it belonged to her. Like I’d given it to her on purpose.
I couldn’t breathe.
Because fuck—
I thought she’d left it behind.
I thought she’d leftmebehind.
Alex followed my line of sight and sighed. “You see now?” he muttered. “She’s trying. To move on. Don’t drag her back down.”
Move on.
The words twisted in my chest like a blade. I wanted to look away, I really did. But I couldn’t. Not when she looked like that, fragile, quiet… alive.
In my jacket.
My throat tightened. “She kept it,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Alex’s jaw flexed. “Yeah,” he said. “Probably because it’s warm. Don’t make it mean more than it does.”
But it did.
It fucking did.
Because if she really hated me, she wouldn’t still be wearing a piece of me. And I stood there in the middle of the courtyard, frozen in place, realising that today…she looked okay.
Not happy, not healed… but breathing better. Eyes less empty.
And that was enough for me… it really was.
—
Class was a blur.
The professor talked, people laughed, pens clicked, and none of it stuck. None of it fucking mattered.
Because all I could think about was her. She was still shadowing me for a few more days.
