I left no message. What would I even say?Have you seen my girlfriend? The one I lied to for weeks? The one who finally learned the full scope of my arrogance and walked out?
I sank onto the couch—the same couch where we'd eaten pizza after Sebastian's accident, where she'd fallen asleep against my shoulder, where I'd watched her laugh at something stupid on television and thoughtthis is it, this is everything, I will burn the world down before I letanything hurt her—
But it had been me.
Not Nathan. Not the board. Not the leak or the merger or any of the external threats I'd been so focused on neutralizing.
Me.
I was the threat I should have been protecting her from.
Do I light myself on fire?
My phone sat dark in my hand.
I called one more time.
No answer.
I didn't leave a message.
There was nothing left to say.
The morning stretched ahead of me—gray and formless—and I sat there in the silence, waiting for a call that might never come.
Wondering if I'd finally pushed her past the point of return.
Wondering if I'd wake up tomorrow in this same spot, with this same hollow ache, and every tomorrow after that.
Alone.
The way I deserved to be.
Let it hurt. Let it carve me hollow.
If this was the price for what I'd done—for every lie I'd dressed up as protection, every choice I'd stolen from her—then I'd pay it. I'd pay it every morning I woke up without her. Every night I reached for warmth that wasn't there.
I pressed my hand to the couch cushion where she usually sat.
A sound crawled out of my throat—low and wounded and barely human.
I whispered her name into the empty room, like the word itself might bring her back.
It didn't.
Chapter twenty-five
Emma
The bagel shop on Lexington opened at five.
I knew because I'd been here before—back when Elion was three employees and a dream stapled together with caffeine and spite. Back when I couldn't afford to sleep past four, couldn't miss a single opportunity, couldn't be anything less than perfect.
I'd forgotten the city had a hush like this. How the streets belonged to delivery trucks and joggers and the occasional person who, like me, had too much in their head to sleep.
The bell above the door chimed as I stepped inside. The same cracked leather booth in the corner. The same smell of fresh bread and burned coffee. The same disinterested teenager behind the counter who didn't care.
I ordered a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese. Sat down. Watched the steam curl from my paper cup of tea.
