Calhoun’s POV~
They finally turned the lights out on .
The barista’s “Sir, we’re closing” was polite, the kind of politeness you give soone who’s been broken in public. I didn’t argue. I let the door close behind and the city chewed up.
Streets I’d walked a thousand tis felt new and hostile and harsh and senseless to . Every step was a replay of how I’d been a coward, how Carla had waltzed back into my life and I’d folded like a cheap suit. The what ifs ca at in several waves: if she’d never shown up, if I’d nad Elodie a week earlier, if, just once, I’d chosen the hard thing when it mattered. The questions didn’t fix anything. They only sharpened the ache in my chest.
The sky tore open. Thunder rattled my bones and the rain ca down like it wanted to wash the city clean of . People scattered for shelter. I walked into the storm because nowhere else felt like shelter anymore.
I said her na until it ant nothing and everything at once. Elodie, Elodie, Elodie... my tongue was like a rosary for a prayer I’d never said when it counted. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I clutched it like a lifeline. Mila’s ssage lit up the screen.
‘It’s over. Co ho.’
Those words folded inward. I didn’t have a clean way to breathe around them. I dropped to my knees on the slick sidewalk, rain slapping my face, and let myself break. My sobs were small and useless against the storm. The city moved around while I sat there and emptied out.
I don’t rember how I ended up at her building. The apartnt block lood like so impossible idea I used to inhabit. Standing there felt obscene, like a thief caught outside the place he used to call refuge. I didn’t have the courage to knock. So I curled up on the cold steps and let the doorway be like a thin shield. Being close to her ho was the smallest rcy I could steal.
I hadn’t slept properly for days. My clothes were sodden, my teeth chattering in a way that felt permanent. The cold slid into slowly. Sowhere between numbness and sleep, I dread of the life I’d ruined.
In the dream she forgave without hesitation. We left that night, no talks, no second-guessing; we boarded my plane and I announced her to the world. I proposed without theatrics because I’d finally learned how to be brave.
I woke with a faint, stupid smile and the world closing around it. Hypothermia crept in like a slow thief. My limbs folded, and the dream kept replaying, her face, the way she’d said my na, the impossible idea that love could forgive one so bone-deeply broken.
When my consciousness thinned, my smile slackened. The rain kept on. The city didn’t notice . I faded into the steps and the dark, and the last thing that hovered before everything went black was the echo of a life I’d been too proud to choose when it mattered.
_____________
When I ca back to consciousness, it felt like my skull had been split open. Every muscle in my body scread, my arms weighed down like lead, but I forced my eyes open. Strange ceiling. Strange walls. For a second, I thought I was already dead.
I tried to push myself up, but then her voice cut through the fog.
“Stay down.”
My heart skipped. Elodie?
Her na slamd into like a fist. My chest cracked open and before I could think, I grabbed her, pulled her against like a man clinging to his last breath.
“Elodie... you forgave ,” I choked, words tumbling out of in a rush. “I know I destroyed everything, I’ll fix it, I swear, I’ll spend every damn day proving it. Just don’t shut out. Please. Please, I can’t—”
I held her like she was air and I was drowning. But she didn’t soften. She didn’t even breathe the way she used to when she was in my arms.
“Get off , Calhoun.” Her voice was cold enough to freeze my bones. She shoved back, but not violently. “I only brought you in because of Mila. If you had died on my doorstep, it would’ve destroyed her. That’s all this is.”
Her words sliced cleaner than claws ever could. I stared at her, desperate, waiting for sothing, anger, tears, anything but her eyes were dead. No fire. No warmth. Not even hate. Just emptiness.
And it gutted .
“Elodie...” My voice broke as I whispered her na. I said it again, softer this ti, begging without pride, because I had nothing left.
She didn’t even look at . Her gaze slid past like I wasn’t worth the effort.
“I called Mila. She’s coming to take you ho. Don’t co back here. Don’t look for again. I’m done.”
“Elodie...” I rasped, desperation clawing at my throat.
Her eyes finally t mine, but it wasn’t rcy, it was the cruelest truth I’d ever faced. “It ended the second you chose Carla.”
Her voice was flat, but the finality in it was absolute. A death sentence.
My chest caved. I felt it, like sothing inside split open, and all the air in the room vanished. I reached for her face without thinking, my hand shaking, just needing to touch her one last ti. But she stepped back. She denied even that.
That broke more than anything.
“Elodie...” The na was raw, stripped of all the power I once carried. “Tell there’s sothing. Anything. I’ll crawl, I’ll bleed, I’ll burn the fucking world down if that’s what it takes. Just... don’t let this be the end.”
Her stare didn’t waver. Her lips parted, and the single word she gave shattered to dust.
“No.”
The sound of it hollowed . I actually forgot how to breathe. My hand fell uselessly to my side. My vision blurred, my throat burned, and still the tears ca, no matter how hard I tried to fight them.
“Okay,” I whispered, broken. “Okay...”
Sothing vital inside cracked then, sothing that would never heal.
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