I still don’t know if letting her go was the right choice.
When I went down to see her, she was curled up asleep, knees tucked to her chest, looking so unbearably small. Fragile. Breakable. And in that instant, I knew what I had done was wrong. Nothing that pure, nothing that beautiful, should ever be caged.
But what the hell did I expect? Leaving the cell door open like some kind of coward’s apology. That she would walk out, stop halfway, and turn back into my arms? That I could track her down later, convince her to stay willingly?
Yeah, right. That was never going to happen. I betrayed her. She’ll never trust me again.
Still, I couldn’t just let her vanish into the night. After I watched her leave the house, I followed. Silent, hidden, matching her pace as she stumbled into the woods
