DAMIEN
.
.
Years.
Everything I seemed to do with Elena seemed to go wrong, even if it looked right from the outside. The perfect couple, the public narrative, it was all a lie. A façade.
The problems within were insurmountable.
I walked out of the art room, the city lights spread out below me a cold, distant constellation.
The penthouse felt vast, empty, the silence rushing in, just like before, like after Leila. The familiar ache in my chest, the one I thought Elena had numbed, sharpened again, doubling the pain of losing her with the persistent, underlying agony of losing Leila all those years ago.
I went to the bar, poured a glass of sharp whiskey that burned.
Drank it down in one gulp, the liquid fire a temporary distraction from the cold emptiness inside.
Poured another
