Jace flinches again.
And in that tiny, devastating moment, I finally understand the thing Griff’s been screaming all along, the thing I’ve been refusing to face.
We weren’t broken because we didn’t love each other.
We were broken because we never loved each otherright.
“Come on,” Knox calls gently. “Tell us where the rest is.”
I nod once, mostly to myself, and step away from Jace, leaving him in the doorway.
Leaving something else behind too.
The last thread snaps quieter than I expected.
But it snaps all the same.
The house goes quiet again after the front door shuts behind Griff and Knox.
Quiet, but not peaceful.
Quiet in the way a room feels after someone yells, the echo still hanging in the corners.
I’m alone now. Or… alone enough.
There’s just one box left. One stupid box with the last pieces of a life I tried so hard to make work.
The framed photo of us at the lake, the one we took before things got complicated. The throw blanket he bought me when I said I hated how cold the leather couch got. A mug from some tiny coffee shop we found on a road trip when we still laughed easily.
My hands hover over all of it before I pack each piece away. Slow. Careful. Final.
Griff’s words still ring louder than any of it.
You broke her.
He wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. Jace didn’t break me on his own, we cracked together, slowly, quietly, under things neither of us ever said out loud. I loved him. God, I did. I built plans around us, routines, futures I thought we could grow into. But I also asked him to marry me when part of me already knew the foundation wasn’t solid. When I was carrying a truth he never deserved, a truth that wasn’t his to carry at all.
I kept pretending time would make it easier. Pretending I could be what he needed. Pretending he could be what I needed too. But deep down, I knew he never chose me first. And the part that twists hardest is knowing I didn’t choose him that way either. Some quiet piece of my heart was tugging somewhere else… toward someone steady. Someone who made me feel seen without me trying to earn it. Someone I told myself I couldn’twant, not when I was building a life with a man who thought he was going to be a father.
So no, he didn’t break me. I broke us too. And maybe that’s the part that hurts the most.
I close the last box and tape it shut.
Footsteps creak in the hall behind me.
I turn.
Jace stands there, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders tight, eyes darker than I’ve seen them in months. He looks at the box, then at me. Then away.
“You done?” he asks.
His voice is low. Rough around the edges.
“Yeah.” My throat works around the word. “That’s the last of it.”
He nods once. Just once. Like anything more might crack something open between us.
For a second, neither of us moves.
