“You never even gave me a choice.”
His lips part, his face crumbling. He thinks that was it. He thinks that was the worst of it.
He’swrong.
I take a shaky breath, lift my chin, and whisper, “I never want to see you again.”
Silence.
For a split second, he looks like he’s about to fall apart.
I don’t stay to watch. I turn, and I run… out the doors into the freezing December night.
The velvet folds of my gown snag on the pavement, the fabric catching in the wind, the cold slicing through me like a thousand tiny knives.
Somewhere behind me, I hear him.
“Amy, wait!” His voice sounds broken.
But I don’t stop. I don’t turn around.
Because if I do—if I let myself look at him, if I let him see the wreckage inside me—I’ll break.
And if I break, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever be able to put myself back together again.
The city swallows me whole, a blur of headlights and the distant chatter of strangers who have no idea that somewhere behind them…
A woman just losteverything.
CHAPTER 13
JAKE
She’s gone.
The cold air bites at my skin and burns my lungs, but I barely feel it.
I stand there, frozen, staring after her as the crowd swallows her whole and the night steals her from me.
She ran. And I… Ilether.
My breath comes too fast, and my pulse roars in my ears, drowning out the distant chatter, the city noise, the lowhum of people filtering back inside the theater behind me.
I don’t move. I can’t.If I do, if I take even one step forward, this will be real. The moment I admit she’s gone… it becomes permanent.
I let fear ruin the best thing that ever happened to me.
A sharp pain claws through my chest, radiating through every inch of me until I don’t know where it ends, and I begin.
My hands twitch uselessly at my sides, aching to go after her. To run. To fix this. To beg.
But there’s nothing left to fix becauseIbroke it. Because I lied.
And now… I’ve lost her.
Because she meant it.I never want to see you again.
The words carve through me, a wound I’ll never stop bleeding from.
