22
RETH
Ian comes in without knocking. That part isn’t new. What’s new is the small diary he drops on the table next to my cold coffee like it’s evidence in a trial I’m about to lose.
For a second, I stare at it. I can’t breathe. It’s not just paper and ink. It’sher. Her voice. Her mind. The only place she ever let herself be completely raw, completely honest, and now it’s sitting here like a corpse I’m being forced to autopsy.
My fingers twitch against my thigh, wanting to snatch it, wanting to burn it, wanting to press it to my face and inhale the faint trace of vanilla and orange peel I know still clings to the pages from her hands.
I do none of those things. I just stare, chest tightening until it feels like my ribs are cracking inward.
Don’t open it. Don’t look. You don’t deserve to hear what she really thinks when you’re not there to control the narrative.
I turn away from it like it might bite me. “No.”
“Reth—”
“Whatever the fuck you’re about to do with that, no.”
“Pick it up.”
My voice flattens, the one I use when I’m done with the world. “Put it back where you found it and get the hell out.”
“I’ve been carrying the damn thing around for two days like a fucking grenade, trying to decide if I should shove it down your throat.”
“And you picked yes. Cute. Put it back.”
“You’re gonna look at it.” His control cracks right there in the middle of the room, the careful mask he’s worn for days finally shattering. “I’ve been here every goddamn night, Reth. Every single fucking night. I’ve pinned you down when you tried to claw through that door like a rabid animal. I’ve taken your hits. I’ve listened to her cry until she went quiet so nobody would hear how badly you’re breaking her. I was waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass on your own timeline.” His voice rises, raw and furious. “But I am done, man. Done waiting for you to stop punishing her for loving you. Pick up the fucking diary.”
The words hit like a gut punch. My stomach clenches violently, a sharp, nauseating roll that makes my shoulders hunch forward before I can stop it. My hand fists on the arm of the chair, nails digging into the wood until I feel the grain bite back. For a second, the room tilts—her crying on the other side of the door, trying to be quiet forme.
I did that. I made her do that. The same man who once promised to protect the only pure thing he ever had is now the thing she needs protectingfrom.
I glare at Ian. “You had no right?—”
“And you’ve got no right to waste her!” He steps closer,eyes blazing with everything he’s been swallowing. “She’s been right outside this door every single day, sleeping on the hallway floor like a kicked dog waiting for its owner to remember it exists. So the least you can do is pick up that diary and fucking read it. So. Pick. It. Up.”
“No.”
Something in him snaps completely.
He’s across the room in three strides, fist twisting in my shirt, pulling me off the chair and slamming my back against the wall so hard the glass rattles behind me. His forearm pins my chest like a steel bar. His face is inches from mine, breath hot, eyes burning.
“You wanna stand there and tell me you know what she can handle?” he growls through his teeth. “You wanna keep deciding for her like she’s too fucking fragile to love what’s left of you? Then you better open that goddamn diary and see what you’ve done to her.”
He steps back, breathing hard, chest heaving, and shoves the diary at me like he’s handing over a death sentence.
I take it because fighting him suddenly feels like fighting the only person who cares enough, he’d risk his life by pinning me.
I open it because some sick, starving, terrified part of me has to know how deep the damage goes.
Her handwriting hits first—Paris, the kitchen, the way she described my hands like they were something worth remembering. The peonies. The apple cinnamon muffins I baked for her. Takada Castle and a bench with the swans. Pages and pages of her pouring her heart onto paper. Each word like a blade cracking through my sternum.
Then the pages turn white.
Blank.
Blank.
