The woods were quiet again, but my head wasn’t. I sat there in the shadows, frozen in the spot where Luca had walked away, his words still echoing like stones dropped into a still lake.
“Maybe it's time I stopped!”
He was right.
I had pushed him, again and again, with my silence, with my coldness. It wasn't because I stopped needing him—I still needed him—but because I didn’t know how to carry the weight of what I’d seen, of what I felt, and still expect him to hold me up. I was ashamed of being so broken, of being afraid.
However, the moment he left just now, when he turned away like he couldn’t take another step near me… a different kind of fear gripped me. Not the kind Alexa’s bloodshed left in my dreams. This one felt more real, it felt like it was connected directly to my heart ‘c
