87

THEA

It’s been two days since Lyra left.

Just two.

And yet the silence feels like it’s been living here for centuries.

This morning, I dropped Finn off at school. Smiled through the routine. Packed his lunch with extra grapes and a little note that said Mommy loves you. He's back to normal. He beamed. Hugged me like I was his world.

And I let him go.

Even though every part of me wanted to hold on just a little longer.

Even though the silence at home scares me now more than any heartbreak ever has.

Maybe that’s the quiet gift of a 9-5 job—constant noise. A scheduled distraction. The clicking sound of your keypad, people who ask you about coffee and deadlines like those things matter more than the ache building behind your ribs.

When you’re working, you don’t really notice how empty your home has become.

You just come back, kick your shoes off, and crash.

But now?

Now I notice.

I see the missing shoes by the door. I feel the cold where laughter used to live. I hear the damn echo of nothing pressing against my ears the moment I step inside.

I pull up to the house slowly and park. Engine off. The car clicks into silence and suddenly I feel it—my eyes burning. Blurry.

Tears threatening without a real reason.

Or maybe with too many.

I slam the door shut and step out, blinking hard, the key to my house swinging from my fingers like a weight I don’t have the strength to hold anymore.

I miss them.

The little boy who stole my heart the second I held him.

The best friend who made it okay to laugh again.

And now, they’re both gone from my house.

God, it's not even ten am yet.

I don’t even know why I let Finn go to school this morning.

Maybe because I didn’t trust myself not to fall apart in front of him.

Or maybe because I knew I would.

I walk up the steps slowly, head bowed, chest tight—

And then I see him.

On my porch.

Ezra. Dressed in black like a grim reaper while he stands there like a ghost with a heartbeat.

I almost chuckle. 

He looks the same.

But I don’t pause.

I don’t soften.

I can’t afford to.

Not now.

I stop a step away and tilt my head slightly to him.

“Get the fuck off.” I say coldly and bluntly.

My voice doesn’t shake.

But deep down—so deep I could throw it into the sea and never find it again—I’m hoping.

Hoping that maybe he’s here to fix things. That maybe this is the scene in the story where we say “I’m sorry” and fall into each other like puzzle pieces with worn edges.

I shove the key into the door and it unlocks with a soft click.

But he follows me inside.

I could have slammed the door to his face. Stopped him from advancing. But I don't. Because literally, my door is always open for him. For him to enter when his phase is over and maybe, just maybe, for him to leave too.

I blink away the tears I don’t want him to see because I don’t want to look weak. I’ve cried enough over him. Over this.

Now, he stands by the doorway.

I turn slightly, just enough to meet his eyes.

And that’s when he says it.

So softly I almost miss it.

Like a death sentence muttered beneath a prayer.

“I’m here to break the bond.”

And that’s when the floor disappears.

That’s when the last light in the room flickers and dies.

That’s when my heart?

Doesn’t even break.

Just stops.

Because… is this even a heartbreak?

I thought I've braced myself enough. But maybe you don't really brace yourself enough for something like this. 

So, I shake my head slowly as he shuts the door.

“Ezra, please don't do this.” I beg.

It escapes before I even realize it. Ripped from somewhere deep—so deep it might’ve come from a past life. Maybe a version of me who still believed in fairy tale endings. In people who stayed.

He stands there, quiet. Still. And I know that stillness. It’s the kind people wear right before they break you.

My knees wobble. My fingers twitch. Every part of me is telling me to let him go. To stand tall. To say, Fine, break the bond. I don’t care anymore.

But I do.

God, I do.

“Please,” I whisper again, my voice catching on the word. “Please don’t.”

I repeat continuously until I’m almost groveling now, blinking hard, trying to breathe around the lump forming in my throat. I should hate him. I should slap him. I should walk or run away.

But instead I step forward like an idiot. Like a girl in a slow-motion tragedy who knows how the movie ends but watches it anyway.

He says nothing.

So I say everything.

“I don’t care what’s going on. I don’t care how broken you think you are or what phase you might be in. You don’t get to do this. You don't get to mark me without my permission and after all this still want to take it away from me. You don’t get to come here and stand in my house and look at me like you’re about to rip something out of me and expect me to just let you—”

But he’s walking closer now.

And something in me snaps.

Leaving only one feeling.

Dread.

“No!” I scream suddenly, thrashing—arms flailing, fists beating at his chest. “Leave me alone! Get out, Ezra, get out!”

He grabs me gently and firmly, like I’m a child mid-tantrum. Like I’m made of glass and fire at once.

I hit him again.

And again.

But he doesn’t let go.

He holds me tighter. Not to hurt. Not to stop me. Just to hold.

I scream into his shirt, into his shoulder, into the universe. Bite him. I scream until my throat is raw and my legs go numb. Until the only sound left in me is a choked sob. Until I stop thrashing and melt into him, exhausted and empty.

Sniffling. Shaking. Hollow.

He pulls back, just enough to look at me.

I almost think he’s changed his mind.

Almost.

Until he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls something out.

Something small.

And dark

Metal-like and odd that I can feel the cold emanating from it.

My chest freezes.

He looks at it, then looks at me.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks softly. “For…”

He trails off. Like he can’t say the word. Like saying it would make it real.

I nod.

Because I’m still that girl.

Still the girl who hopes.

Still the girl who wants the goodbye to taste like maybe.

Foolish desperate me.

He smiles—but it’s bitter.

Twisted.

Already gone.

“I’m sorry,” he says, taking his hand to his mouth.

Then his other hand cups my chin, fingers trembling slightly, and he leans in.

His lips find mine, hard and soft and final.

A kiss that feels like it’s unbreaking me just to break me worse.

I taste him.

I taste salt.

I taste the end.

And then—

Something cold pressing against my lips.

Sliding in.

I freeze.

He kisses me deeper, slower, and I feel it now—the foreign weight, slick and metallic on my tongue. I gasp and try to pull back.

But he holds me.

He holds me and he kisses me and I can’t breathe and I don’t want to swallow but I do, because he won’t let me go.

I thrash again, this time more violently.

But his grip is firm and unmoving. Like he’s holding the last memory he wants of me and refusing to let it go until the moment is done.

I choke.

I swallow.

But he didn't stop.

The pain comes slow.

But once it does—it doesn’t knock.

It rips the door off the hinges and storms in like war.

It starts in my chest. Just a little tug. A little twist. Like someone’s fingernail scraping at the inside of my ribcage. And then…

It detonates.

A wildfire licking every nerve ending, dragging me from the inside out like my soul is being unraveled thread by thread.

I whimper.

I cry out.

But Ezra kisses me through it. He didn't stop.

His lips are soft and warm and cruel and familiar. He kisses me like he’s trying to hold the bond in place just long enough to keep it from tearing.

But it’s already tearing.

It’s already gone.

And my sadness only worsens it, feeding the pain like blood to a beast.

I clutch at him weakly, sobbing into his mouth, trying to hang onto something—anything—that feels like him. That feels like us. But nothing feels right anymore. Not even him.

Because this is the end.

And like everything else—

The sweet beginnings don’t hurt.

But the endings?

They bleed.

They leave ugly, jagged scars that don’t fade with time. They bury themselves deep in your bones and call it healing when really it’s just surviving.

And this scar?

This one?

It’s shaped exactly like him.

Right on my heart.

Right where he always lived.

Will it ever heal?

His lips slow against mine.

Softer now.

Like a lullaby.

A goodbye.

And then—

He licks my bottom lip gently, like he’s memorizing it. Like he’s making a last imprint of the place he once called home.

And when he finally pulls away, my knees buckle.

My hand instinctively flies to my chest—clutching at the fabric above my heart, as if it can shield me from the agony now ripping through me like a hurricane with no mercy.

I choke on a sob.

Tears streaming down.

“I'm sorry,” he says again, voice wrecked and rough. “I did what I had to do. For us… Sugarplum.”

Sugarplum.

The nickname feels like a funeral dirge.

He lets go of me—slowly. Carefully. Like he’s untying a knot he doesn’t want to admit he made.

And then—

Right before my eyes—

He vanishes.

Just like that.

Like a dream slipping through morning fingers.

And I’m left—

In my living room.

Dying.

Clutching my chest.

A writhing, shattered mess on the floor.

Alone.

Again.

Always.