Chapter Thirteen: The Hollow After
I'd been going through the motions for weeks. Work. Shower. Whiskey. Sleep—barely. Rinse. Repeat. I felt like a ghost in my own life. Just a body on autopilot, moving from one meaningless task to the next. I didn't even flinch when I nearly walked into traffic two days ago. I just stood there like a jackass until someone honked.
This is what it felt like to lose her.
Not June, the woman. June, the life. The anchor. The sun, and I was drifting without her. Spiraling.
The night I left Selene, after a month living together, it was raining. Of course it was. Her apartment still smelled like lavender and cinnamon—comforting, and wrong. My duffel bag was already packed. I'd made the decision the moment I found June's ring. I held it like it burned. Selene walked in to find me standing there with the ring in my hand.
She didn't move. Didn't blink.
"Oh," she said, voice flat and sharp as glass. "So that's what this is."
"I can't do this anymore," I said, my voice low, shredded. "I should've never—"
"Never what?" she cut in, stalking forward now. "Never come back? Never showed up on my doorstep like a ghost with nowhere else to go? Never crawled intomybed and cuddled and let me believe I meant something again?"
"I—"
"—Never kissed me like you remembered me?" she shouted, eyes blazing. "Never whispered things in the dark like they meant anything? God, Aaron. You didn't just stumble into this. You came running the moment you saw me."
"I didn't mean—"
"Oh, shut up with theintent," she snapped, her voice shaking. "You didn't mean to hurt me? Congratulations, you still did. You think that makes it better? You used me like a damn Band-Aid."
"I was lost," I murmured, shame curling hot in my gut.
"And I wasconvenient," she fired back, bitter. "You needed someone to hold your hand while you figured your shit out."
"I was hurting."
"And now I am hurting!" she cried, jabbing her finger into her chest. "I let you in. I still hoped. Because no matter what we'd been through, I thought... maybe we still had a shot."
I couldn't look at her. The ring in my hand felt like a stone pinning me to the floor.
"I was selfish. And scared. But I'm not hiding from that anymore. What I did—to you, to her—it was wrong."
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "Say it, then. Out loud. You're still in love with her."
"Yes," I said, steady this time. "I am."
The room went still.
Selene's voice dropped, small now. "Then why the hell haven't you gone after her?"
I let out a broken, bitter laugh. "Because she thinks I picked you."
She stared. "Well...Didn't you?"
I flinched.
She laughed again, but there was no humor in it—just disbelief and something close to fury. "Goodluck, Aaron. You think she'sjust waiting for you? That you can shatter her and stroll back in like nothing happened?"
"I don't think it'll be easy—"
"No, it won't," she snapped, stepping forward. "You left her in a second. No hesitation. And it's going to takeyearsto get her back. she might still cry over you, but she won'ttrustyou. Not for a long time. Maybe never."
Her words slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I felt cold all over.
