He’d carried a photograph of us for sixteen years. I’d spent those same years trying like hell to stop carrying him. Only one of us had managed it, and it sure as hell wasn’t him.
I picked it up and stared longer than I meant to. No memory of the moment. Just us, caught laughing by whoever snapped the picture. That girl had her whole soul in it, wide open, no walls, convinced the ground was solid, she had no clue.
I slid the photo into my bag. “Thank you,” I said.
Sebastian didn’t push. He watched me with that quiet patience he’d grown into, the kind that wants without demanding. He let the silence stay heavy between us. No questions about why I was taking it. or any talk of next steps. Just space.
We said goodbye on the pavement. Nothing dramatic, two people who’d finally talked hone
