Chapter Twenty-One: Moving On

The lights were bright—almost too bright. They weren’t the warm kind of lights, not the kind you’d find in a cozy living room or the soft glow of early morning. These were sharp, clinical, designed to illuminate every flaw, every twitch of expression, every fracture in the mask I had so carefully arranged on my face. They hummed faintly, a high-pitched buzz at the edge of hearing, like they were trying to drill into my skull.

The camera lens directly in front of me reflected in my eyes like a cold, unblinking pupil. I could see myself in it—posture straight, hands clasped politely in my lap, my expression relaxed. A practiced image. The one I’d been coached on: calm, composed, approachable.

But beneath that reflection was the weight of every gaze in the room. The audience sat in rows of shadowed silhouettes, their attention drawn toward the stage like moths to flame. The host beside me—the interviewer—wore a smile so bright it almost blended with the lights above. Behind her, screens plastered with the cover of my book glowed like stained glass.

A book. A story. My story—just not in the way anyone here understood.

“Using one word,” she began, crossing one leg over the other with the effortless ease of someone completely at home under scrutiny, “how would you describe yourself?”

I stiffened before I could stop myself. She didn’t notice, but I felt it—a tightening in my spine, a clench in my jaw that I forced into stillness a moment later. The question echoed, bouncing around inside my skull, ricocheting off memories I worked very, very hard to keep locked away.

One word.

Funny, how something so simple could feel like walking barefoot across broken glass.

The words that came to mind first were the ones I never said aloud. Broken. Haunted. Dangerous. A dozen others lingered on my tongue, each one holding a piece of a truth too jagged to hand to strangers. They would have shocked them, terrified them, confused them. They weren’t ready for what lay beneath my skin.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure I was ready for it.

The red sky.

The ash raining like snow.

The earth splitting beneath my knees.

Carter’s lifeless body in my arms.

The audience waited, unaware of the storm behind my silence. The interviewer tilted her head slightly, as though urging me forward, gently prodding the answer she assumed would be simple. Light-hearted. Marketable.

I inhaled, blinked slowly, and cleared my throat. When I finally spoke, I chose the only word that wouldn’t unravel me.

“Lucky.”

There were nods. Soft, approving smiles. A ripple of murmurs, all warm and satisfied, like they thought I’d just shared something wholesome and profound. Cameras clicked. Pens scribbled. I could see the word forming in their minds, ready to be printed in tomorrow’s headlines:

AUTHOR DESCRIBES HIMSELF AS “LUCKY”
HUMBLE. GROUNDED. GRATEFUL.

If only they knew.

Lucky wasn’t a word I used lightly. Not after everything that had happened. Not after everything I had lost. It was the simplest word I knew for the most complicated truth I carried.

Five years ago, I had survived something no one here could imagine—not even if they read my book cover-to-cover, not even if they studied every metaphor, every line, every tear-stained page. The world saw the glossy edges: bestselling author, young, successful, compelling debut story. A novel so vivid it felt real, they said. So raw it almost seemed lived.

They had no idea how right they were.

The interviewer leaned forward, her pen tapping lightly against her desk, a deliberate rhythm meant to appear casual. “Why lucky?” she asked, her eyebrows raised with intrigue. She smiled again—she liked this angle, I could tell. The humble, soft-spoken writer with a touching answer. Easy to package. Easy to sell.

I returned her smile, careful to keep it gentle, steady. “Because I’m still here,” I said simply. “And because I get to tell the story.”

The audience reacted instantly—murmurs of approval, a few soft claps, the energy warming, expanding. Expressions softened, eyes glistened. They loved that. It sounded inspiring, heartfelt, triumphant.

No one saw the tremor beneath the words.

The half-memory that still haunted me—the one I never spoke about—lingered like smoke in the back of my mind. The flash of golden light that had torn from my chest. The scream that wasn’t entirely human. The crumbling world beneath my feet.

No one here knew about Carter.

Or Snow.

Or Phineas.

Or the monster I became in my grief.

No one knew what I had destroyed—what I had unleashed—when I lost the person who meant more to me than anything in the world.

Lucky.

That was all they needed to hear.

That was all they would ever understand.

The interviewer nodded, satisfied by the neatness of my answer. “That’s beautiful,” she said softly, touching her hand to her heart with theatrical sincerity. “Really, that’s… that’s something.”

I smiled as if the compliment warmed me.

It didn’t.

I could feel the faintest pressure building behind my ribs—the echo of power that never fully left me, even after everything. Even after the worlds closed. Even after Carter’s last breath turned cold against my cheek. When I got emotional, it stirred, flickering behind my sternum like a small flame desperate to remind me it still existed.

I shifted in my seat, unbuttoning my cuff with my thumb to cool my wrist.

The applause drifted behind me, polite and controlled, the soft rustling of people ready to move on to the next safe, predictable question.

But the truth pressed against the inside of my chest. Pressed hard.

I let a fraction of it slip through my expression—not enough to frighten anyone, but just enough to keep me human. To keep them believing in the version of me they thought they understood. A quick flicker of vulnerability. A subtle downward drop of my gaze. A soft exhale, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it.

A memory pulsed in my mind like a heartbeat.

Carter’s smile.

The real one—the one he gave right before everything fell apart.

Right before he saved me by damning himself.

Lucky.

What a cruel word.

What a perfect one.

The interviewer moved on, flipping her notecards, transitioning into questions about the film adaptation and the worldwide tour and the fan letters I had “no doubt been inundated with.” I answered everything with the expected ease, practiced charm sliding into place like a second skin. I made them laugh twice. I made them hum in thought three times. I made myself seem whole.

But underneath every sentence…

Underneath every nod and smile…

Underneath every bright camera light…

Something in me was still burning. Quietly. Constantly.

Not destructive anymore—just alive.

Just waiting.

For what, I didn’t know.

Maybe I never would.

But for now, I sat beneath the studio lights, hands folded, smile gentle, posture perfect, and let the world believe its version of me.

Because the truth?

The real truth?

It belonged to another world.

To another life.

To Carter.

And I would never give it away.

Lucky. That was all anyone needed to hear.

And for tonight—for this interview—for this carefully controlled sliver of my life…

It was enough.