Brielle’s POV
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to Adrian. It was because I didn’t know how.
Every time my phone lit up with his name, a tremor ran through me—a bittersweet blend of longing and fear. I’d read his messages in silence, fingers hovering over the keyboard, then lock the screen and set it face-down like it might bite me.
Hey, just checking in. You okay?
I heard what happened. I should’ve been there.
Please, Brielle. Talk to me.
But what was there to say?
I wasn’t the same girl who had played guitar for him in his room while the rain poured against the windows. That girl had believed he would come for her when the world fell apart.
He hadn’t.
It wasn’t fair, I knew. He didn’t know Fiona would go that far. But fairness felt abstract lately—like gravity in dreams. And
