Tessa's POV:
I walked out of the café with a strange ache in my chest. Not the kind that came from heartbreak, but the kind that followed a long-overdue closure. Liam had always been a chapter I kept open out of pity or nostalgia, but sitting across from him that afternoon, watching him insist that he could win me back, I knew it was over and had been for a while.
His words lingered as I crossed the street, the city humming around me. “I’m going to keep trying.”
I should have felt flattered. Touched, even. But I didn’t. I just felt tired. And ready. Ready to move forward.
The next morning, I found myself back on campus, hiding behind my coffee cup and pretending I was more composed than I felt. My lectures flew by in a blur, the same way clouds roll past a window when your mind is some
