FAZER LOGINErik Pov. I manage to keep it together all the way home. My hands are shaking as I lock the door behind me, like I’ve just been out in the cold for too long. Her notebook is still in my backpack. I can’t even bring myself to put it down. It feels like it weighs more than anything I’ve carried lately. I sit on the couch. Stare at nothing. I miss her. God, I miss her. It’s been weeks, but the sound of her laugh still lives in my head. The way she’d curl into my chest like she belonged there. How she’d always run her fingers down my arm absentmindedly while we watched something—like even when her mind was somewhere else, she wanted to touch me. I miss the weight of her in my bed. Her breath on my neck in the middle of the night. The way she used to kiss me in the morning, still half-asleep. I feel the tears sting behind my eyes, and I grit my teeth to stop them—but it’s too late. They come fast, hot, and heavy. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes like I can block it a
Kim Pov. I spend the entire night thinking. Not just about the pain or the guilt. But about him. What makes Erik who he is? What he hides behind those long silences and low, tired sighs? What’s sacred to him, even if he never says it out loud? I go back through everything. Our late-night talks. His hand slipping into mine when we crossed the street. The way he once looked at me when I said I felt safest with him—and how he couldn’t even speak after. And then I remember it. That day in November. The rain hadn’t stopped in hours and we were curled on the couch with coffee, his old leather-bound journal in his lap, something he rarely showed anyone. He’d told me then that it wasn’t just for work. That when he needed to clear his head or ground himself, he wrote everything down. Sometimes even his dreams. “You can’t solve your own case if you don’t understand your own mind,” he’d murmured, brushing his thumb along the edge of the page. And then he'd smiled, just barely. “It’s stupi
Kim Pov.I don’t cry on the street. I don’t cry in the elevator. I don’t cry when I reach Erik’s apartment, where I’ve been staying alone for weeks, surrounded by memories and silence. But the second the door clicks shut behind me and I lean back against it, it all comes out.Hot, bitter tears.He kissed someone.He kissed someone and told me like it didn’t cost him anything. Like he hadn’t once told me he couldn’t get enough of me. And I get it—I do. I hurt him first. I betrayed the trust I kept begging him to give me.But still, it burns.I don’t know how long I cry. Long enough for my sweater sleeves to be soaked from wiping my face. Long enough that when my phone buzzes with a message, I almost don’t check it. But it’s from Maja.You home? Got donuts. Need girl talk.I text her back a weak yes, and not ten minutes later, she’s knocking on my door with a box of chocolate donuts and two coffees. I open the door, looking like hell—eyes red, lips trembling—but she just gives me a look
Erik Pov.It’s been two weeks since she kissed him.Since I saw her body melt against another man’s… mouth, hands—hell, I don’t even know how far it went. I never asked. I never wanted to know. The image of that moment is branded into my skull anyway. It plays behind my eyelids when I try to sleep. It crawls into my chest when I hear her laugh—her laugh, that I used to think was mine.And still… she keeps showing up.Every day, she comes to Maja’s apartment, carrying some kind of hope in her eyes. She talks to me like I’m still hers, like the space between us isn’t filled with all the things she broke. And I let her talk. I let her sit beside me on the couch, quiet or rambling—whatever she needs to do, I let her. But I never look at her.Because when I look at her, I don’t see Kim.I see him.I see them.And it makes me sick.Today is no different. She’s next to me again, close enough that I can feel the heat of her thigh just brushing mine. She’s in one of my old hoodies—God knows sh
Kim Pov.The silence is the worst part. Not the kind that lingers after a fight or a long day. This is the kind that hollows out your chest. It seeps into everything—the walls, the sheets, the spaces where his laughter used to echo.I’ve called him. Texted him. Begged him to talk to me. Nothing.It’s been a week.Seven days of waking up in his bed alone. Of walking through his apartment like I don’t belong anymore. I touch his things—his shirt draped over the chair, the half-empty mug he forgot in the kitchen, his aftershave in the bathroom—and every object feels like a goodbye I never saw coming.I want to scream. I want to go back in time and slap myself across the face before I ever leaned in toward Luca. What was I thinking?I wasn’t.I was caught in the moment—feeling seen, feeling wanted—and I forgot. I forgot what it meant. I forgot Erik. I forgot myself.I sit on the couch, Erik’s hoodie wrapped around me like armor, and scroll through our old photos. Us cooking pasta. Us cudd
Erik Pov. The sky begins to bleed into gray as I finally turn the key in the ignition. Every part of me feels like lead—my limbs, my chest, my thoughts. I’ve never known heartbreak like this. Never thought I’d feel it from her. The girl I swore to protect. The one I let in when I thought I never would again. I drive on instinct, barely aware of the roads. I can’t go home. I can’t walk through the door and smell her perfume on the pillows or see the sweater she left on the couch or the half-finished cup of tea by the sink. I’m not strong enough. So I go where I always go when I’m lost. Maja. Her apartment is still quiet when I park in front of the building. She’s probably asleep. It’s not even 6 a.m., and I feel guilty before I even knock. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. No one else who knows me like she does. When I knock, I hear rustling and then footsteps. The door creaks open and Maja appears, wrapped in a thick hoodie, blinking against the early morning light. Her br
Kim pov.I never thought a college hallway could make me feel this... unsure. There are people everywhere. Laughing. Talking. Some in tight jeans and expensive jackets, others carrying huge books, headphones around their necks. And then there's me. Clutching my notebook like a life vest, trying to
Erik pov.It’s been two weeks since Kim started school. At first, I could see the hesitation in her every step—the tight grip she had on her bag, the way she stood by the door to her class like she was preparing to run at the first wrong word. But she didn’t. She stayed. She took a breath and walke
Kim pov. At my last session with Dr. Derrin, she smiled at me in that calm, knowing way and said the words I’d been hoping for but also secretly fearing. “You’re ready, Kim. Ready to go back into the world. To try new things. To live again.” It didn’t hit me right away. Not until we stood up, hu
Kim pov. I wake up warm. It takes me a few seconds to realize why. I’m not in my bed. I’m still on the couch, curled up like a blanket-draped cat. But what really makes me pause… is the steady rise and fall of Erik’s chest under my cheek. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on him. Or maybe I did. Ma







