A Storm We Called History
337 Words
Chapter 38: A Storm We Called History
Jay hadn’t spoken in ten minutes.
He sat on the edge of the couch, hunched over, elbows on knees, hands clasped tight like he was praying to a god he no longer believed in.
Lena paced behind him. Her stomach twisted, not with jealousy—but with the cold edge of dread. Ava’s name had sliced open something raw in Jay. Something he never wanted her to see.
“She was more than just a betrayal, wasn’t she?” Lena asked softly.
Jay nodded once. “She was the first person I ever trusted with everything.”
“Even more than Elijah?”
His voice cracked. “Different kind of trust. I loved her once. Or maybe I thought I did. But it was obsession. We were drawn together like matches in gasoline—deadly and hot and all wrong.”
Lena sat across from him, close enough that their knees brushed. “Did she betray Elijah too?”
Jay looked at her. His eyes weren’t just haunted—they were fractured. “Elijah fell for her too. We both did. But I got out. He didn’t.”
The weight of it sat between them like smoke—heavy, toxic, unspoken.
“She turned him in,” Jay whispered. “The night he disappeared… he was supposed to meet me. But he met her instead. I think she led them to him. I think... she watched them take him.”
Lena’s chest tightened. “You never told anyone this?”
“I couldn’t prove it. And if I was wrong… if she was innocent…” He shook his head. “But I don’t believe she was. Not anymore.”
Lena reached out and took his hand. He flinched, then let her.
“You’re not alone anymore,” she said. “Whatever she’s come back for—we face it together.”
Jay didn’t speak.
But for the first time since Ava’s name was spoken, he held her hand back.
Tightly.
- Writer
