You Hated Me, I Left Forever

Chapter 3

Draven turned around and met Cressida's cold, heavy gaze straight on.

He opened his mouth to explain, but the voice from his phone, Sweet Cressida, spoke up again, soft and gentle.

"My love, why are you quiet? Have you grown tired of me?"

The words felt like a verdict being spoken against him. Cressida's face darkened instantly, and she stepped forward to snatch up his phone and shut it off.

"Draven, stop playing these pathetic little games you invent all by yourself. You drove Zoren away. Since then there has been nothing left between us but to make each other miserable."

Pale moonlight fell over Draven, wrapping around him like something lonely and hollow.

Long after Cressida had stormed away, those four bitter words hung in his mind, making them both miserable.

After a long while, he stirred, unlocked his phone, and pressed the button marked Delete All Data beneath the image of Sweet Cressida.

He watched the progress bar creep slowly across the screen until the gentle, smiling face vanished completely.

Draven's chest felt empty all at once, yet a faint, relieved smile touched his lips. A foolish longing. Nothing more than empty air.

*****

It was ten o'clock that night when Draven reached for the lamp to turn it off. His phone buzzed against the nightstand.

It was Director Huxley calling.

He answered, and the man's voice came through bright with excitement.

"Moonscribe, congratulations! Your debut novel "Moonlight Across the Void" has caught the eye of an investor. They want to adapt it as a short drama. When can you come in and discuss the details?"

Draven paused. Memories drifted back to him.

Three years ago, after Cressida had rejected him for the ninety-ninth time, he had poured all the love he could never speak aloud into writing under the pen name Moonscribe.

He had never expected the story to take the whole internet by storm, or to be signed by one of the best studios in the city and become the work of a highly sought-after screenwriter.

The hero and heroine of "Moonlight Across the Void" were him and Cressida. Every moment of them was written there.

Except in the story, he had given them a happy ending. In the real world, all Cressida had ever given him was hatred.

Part of him did not want this story brought to life on screen. But the rights now belonged to the studio. He had no real reason to refuse.

"Tomorrow morning," he said quietly.

He ended the call, rubbed his temples, and fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep.

*****

The next morning at the studio, Draven waited in the lounge for Director Huxley.

Then a murmur rippled through the room, and he looked up. Standing in the doorway were Cressida and Zoren.

Zoren saw him at once and walked over with that familiar soft smile. "Draven, what a lovely surprise to find you here."

Draven said nothing.

Zoren continued, as though nothing was amiss. "Cressida is here on my behalf. She knows how much I have always dreamed of acting. She has come to buy the adaptation rights to the most talked-about story in the whole city, "Moonlight Across the Void", written by the mysterious Moonscribe."

Draven's gaze sharpened. He looked across the room to where Cressida stood surrounded by staff and admirers.

So this was the investor Director Huxley had spoken about. It was her.

Cressida looked over just then and saw him standing there. Her expression turned icy in an instant. She walked straight toward him.

"Draven," she said, her voice cold and sharp. "What are you doing here?"

"I am here —"

"Cressida, it is obvious," Zoren cut in smoothly. "He simply cannot bear to be apart from you. He has followed you all the way here."

Zoren's words hung there, heavy with implication: Draven had stalked them, out of pathetic obsession.

Cressida's expression hardened. She caught Draven by the arm and marched him out into the open air.

The sky rumbled with thunder, and her voice crashed down just as loud and hard. "Draven, you haunt me and cling to me every single day. It makes me sick!"

Draven's chest tightened painfully. "I did not follow you. I am here for work."

Cressida laughed, sharp and bitter. "Work? When have you ever worked? All you do is trail after me or hide away inside this house. When did you ever build a career of your own?"

Every word she spoke cut deeper than a knife. She did not know. She had never known.

It was true he had spent every waking moment wrapped up in her.

He had signed with the studio, yes, but he had always worked from home, quietly and unseen, because he had never wanted to be anywhere she might feel forced to see him.

He did not wish to argue. He spoke softly, steadily, as rain began to fall around them. "Cressida, if you truly hate me this much… Let us end this. We can part ways peacefully. No more bitterness."

The words hung there, and the air seemed to still entirely.

Cressida stared at him as though she could not believe what she had just heard.

Rain streaked across her face. She looked at him properly for the first time in years, at the man standing before her, pale and worn, nothing like the bright, reckless boy she had once known.

A strange, unnameable restlessness rose inside her chest. But she pushed it away instantly, and her expression hardened once more.

"Part ways peacefully?" she snapped. "You destroyed the happiness I should have had. You tore my life apart. And now you wish to walk away clean? It will never happen.

"If I am damned, then so are you. We shall burn in hell together, Draven Corwyn!" she spat.