Nobela ni Keafoon Grace

The sun had risen a little higher by the time I stepped outside again, the warmth already pressing against my skin like a gentle warning. A thin sheen of sweat clung to my brow, and I wiped it with the back of my hand as my eyes swept across the garden.It was overgrown.Untamed.Beautiful in that unruly way nature becomes when it’s left to its own will. The hibiscus had burst out of its neat bed, spilling toward the stone path in unruly waves of red and coral. Creeping vines clung to the fence posts and wrapped around the wooden stakes like lovers who never wanted to let go, threatening to strangle the smaller blossoms that tried to bloom beneath their shade.It looked abandoned. Forgotten.But somehow… it felt like me.And I didn’t mind.There was something sacred about the mess, about getting lost in it. I dug my hands into the earth, pulling weeds and snipping away decayed leaves. Each movement is slow and deliberate, almost meditative. As if with every tug, every breath of damp s

I woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all.My limbs ached, not from labor but from the weight of restless thoughts and unspoken regrets. It was like I had been fighting in my sleep—battling ghosts I couldn’t name, chasing shadows that always slipped through my fingers. My head felt heavy, fogged over, like my mind had stayed up long after my body gave in.Dreams had visited me in fragments—faces half-remembered, voices laced with pain, memories I had shoved into the deepest corners of my mind. Some of them whispered. Others screamed.Still, something stirred me.It wasn’t the light bleeding through the old lace curtains, though it painted golden patterns across the room. Nor was it the birdsong drifting from the mango tree outside, even though it carried a melody I used to whistle as a child.No.It was a smell.Rich. Warm. Heartachingly familiar.It drifted into the room like a quiet invitation—unspoken, yet impossible to ignore. Meat. Onions. Garlic. The sharp sizzle of something

I left the city the next morning.No dramatic goodbye. No tearful farewells at the station. No one running after me in the rain. Just me, a battered backpack slung over one shoulder, a crumpled bus ticket in my hand, and that hollow ache in my chest that whispered—go.Not for revenge. Not even for healing.Just to breathe.I needed air that didn’t taste like him. Walls that didn’t remember my cries. Streets that didn’t echo with the sound of my own unraveling.I needed to go where his scent didn’t cling to the curtains. Where I didn’t wake up reaching for someone who’d already let me go.So I left.I took nothing but the essentials—just enough clothes, a photo of Grandma tucked in my journal, and the remnants of a heart that still hadn’t decided whether to keep beating.I didn’t even look back.Because looking back meant I’d hesitate. It meant I’d feel everything again—the betrayal, the confusion, the stupid sliver of hope still lodged in my chest like a shard of glass. So I stared st

I didn’t sleep.Not really.Travian stayed with me on the couch all night, his arm a warm band around my shoulders, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he let go. He held me like I was something fragile—already cracked, already slipping through his fingers. And maybe I was. Maybe that’s why I didn’t push him away. Why I stayed still, curled up against him, my body betraying me with how naturally it leaned into his warmth. I didn’t speak. I didn’t cry again. I just sat there—numb, hollowed out, my limbs heavy and slow, my mind lost in an echo chamber of pain. My body curled into his like instinct, even when everything inside me was screaming not to trust him.Because he kissed her.Tessa.His ex.The memory tore through me like glass. Jagged. Sharp. Impossible to ignore. Her hands in his hair. His lips on hers. The intimacy of it. The ease. The way he didn’t push her away fast enough. The way his eyes met mine after, wide and panicked, like that made a difference. Like panic was supposed

Dain insisted I take him to my place.I should’ve said no—God knows I wanted to. The word was on the tip of my tongue, trembling, aching to be spoken. But I couldn’t say it. My throat had closed up, like the fear lodged there had sealed it shut. The fight had drained out of me completely, hollowing me from the inside out. And Dain—he saw that. He sensed it. He always did. That frightening ability to read me like an open book was something I used to find intoxicating. Now, it just felt like a curse.So, with a leaden silence and trembling hands, I led him through the quiet streets. The night air was heavy, thick with something I couldn’t name—shame, maybe. Or dread. My legs moved on instinct, my mind a foggy mess as we walked the narrow path to my building. I didn’t dare look back at him. I didn’t have to. His presence crawled over my skin like ice, invasive and undeniable.We reached my small apartment—a place that was once my sanctuary but now felt like a cage I had built with my own

Sadness.Yes… I felt sadness. Not just the ordinary kind that fades with time or distraction. No, this was the kind that sat heavy in my bones, pressing down on my chest like a thousand silent regrets. It wasn’t because I had ended things with Luke — that decision, while hard, felt necessary. But what shattered me was the collateral damage. I hadn’t just ended a relationship… I had jeopardized something far more precious. I had risked our friendship — a connection we’d nurtured for years — and deep down, I knew with aching certainty that we could never go back to what we were before. Not ever again.The walk felt endless, the minutes stretching out into forever, and the street ahead looked so eerily deserted, it was as if the entire world had emptied itself out, leaving only me to wander it — the last survivor of something quietly devastating.There was only one place that felt like it could offer me shelter — only one person I could run to for comfort, for understanding, for refuge f