Aria.
I barely made it to my room before the weight of it all crushed me. The second the door closed, I dropped to the floor, the sobs ripping out of me like I had been holding them in for years. My chest hurt, my throat burned, but I couldn’t stop. It was like every piece of me had broken at once.
Seeing him out there with Serena, smiling, standing tall while the world cheered for him… and me? I was nothing but a shadow at the edge of the field. A nobody. He hadn’t even hesitated. He hadn’t looked like someone torn between two choices. He looked like he had already made his choice, and it wasn’t me.
My knees drew to my chest as I gasped for air through my tears. The kiss at the lake played over in my mind, the warmth of his lips, the fire that had caught in me when his hands held me li
