Page 235 of Vexatious Queen

“Maybe. But, Eddie, don’t let me off the hook so easily. Trauma or not, I still made choices, and I have to deal with the consequences.”

Eddie nodded as he cupped my face.

“You do, and you will. But one of those is not going to be me ending us.”

My eyes welled and immediately spilled over as relief washed through me.

“Really?”

“Ana…my love is absolute. It always has been, and there is nothing you could do that would ever change that.”

“Except leaving again,” I corrected.

He smirked. “Yes…other than that.”

Covering my mouth, I let the emotion break wide open. It was like my chest had finally cracked and all the things I’d suppressed clawed their way out at the same time.

I didn’t know how to rebuild what I’d shattered or whether forgiveness would ever fully find me. I only knew that even after everything—the lie, the graves, the time apart—Eddie’s heart still recognized mine.

Love hadn’t saved us from pain. But it had survived it. And that felt like a miracle I didn’t deserve but would protect for the rest of my life, no matter how long that was.

MARCH 11 – WEDNESDAY 2:57 PM

Ren

The quiet didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt earned.

I sat in the art room, staring at the piece I’d spent the last few days working on as a way to remember the past and to help me deal with the future. The second coat of polymer varnish was drying on the canvas. I’d seen this in my mind the moment I walked into the room.

The targets I’d taken from the shooting range were in the center. I wanted to preserve them, but had left all the wrinkles and yellowing that announced a time long past. My parents were painted in the background, out of focus, the lines imperfect, the colors a little distorted, but the look in their eyes was clear.

Four days had passed since everything detonated. Four days ago, my mother stood in my father’s dining room and shattered the version of my life I thought I understood. It had been four days since I’d realized some wounds didn’t bleed out in the moment. They just settled deep and waited.

Campus life didn’t pause for revelations like that. I had moved through the halls quietly, nodding to familiar faces, offering half-smiles where they were expected. I wasn’t hiding. I just wasn’t explaining, not to anyone, maybe not even to myself.

Classes continued. People laughed too loudly in the hallways and complained about assignments, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the world was fragile and history could reach out and grab you by the throat when you least expected it. I envied their ignorance.

The bell rang announcing the end of classes, but it didn’t matter. I was alone in here anyway. Slowly packing up my supplies, I walked over to the sink and cleaned my brushes, the task relaxing in its simplicity.

By the time I stepped out into the hall, I felt better than I had in a long time, more in touch with who I was and who I wanted to be. Myles was waiting for me, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He looked sexy and sweet and wholly mine.

He lifted his head and smiled as he put his phone away.

“Well, hello there, Snowflake. How ya doing?”

I didn’t wait for him to come to me. I was drawn to the warmth of his body and fell into his embrace.

“I’m better. I think I’ve gone through every emotion possible, but I’m feeling more myself,” I said, and he held me tighter. “You’ve always been able to make me feel better.”

“Aye, it be me superpower,” Myles said, making me laugh.

“Don’t you have practice now?”

“Naw, Coach moved it to tomorrow. Some personal stuff. I didn’t ask,” he said as I stepped back.

He picked up his backpack and flung it over his shoulder. Myles fell into stride beside me, hands in his jacket pockets, one of mine tucked in snugly with his.

The air was cold enough to bite when we walked outside. Winter clung stubbornly to the edges of campus. It was the coldest one in twenty years, according to the local news. Snow crunched beneath our boots as we crossed the quad. The sky hung low and pale, the kind of gray that made everything feel hushed.