It’s sick, really. Twisted. Because she’sgone. Burned in a fire, buried in a past I can’t fix. And even if I could? She’s not the girl I remember. Not after what Reign’s letter revealed.
She betrayed us.
Betrayedher.
That’s the part that cuts the deepest. Reign gave her everything—her trust, her loyalty, herheart. And Berkley threw it away like it meant nothing. Like screwing her boyfriend behind her back was just another choice, not a knife to all our spines.
Like we didn’t matter. LikeIdidn’t matter.
And now I’m left in the wreckage, sifting through the ashes of what we were, trying to convince myself that the girl I loved—the version of her I still see when I close my eyes—would’ve never done that.
But she did.
And I don’t know how to let her go when part of me still clings to the lie that she wouldn’t have betrayed us.
And I hate that it stillhurts.
Because it shouldn’t.
She’s dead.
I’ll never see her again, never touch her, never get to scream at her the way I want to. There’s no closure. No reckoning. Just this endless ache I can’t shake. This rage I carry in my chest like a second heartbeat.
I can’t evenhearher name without going ballistic.
Which is exactly why I can’t listen to Ronan and his wild-ass conspiracy theories. Every few months he brings it up again, whispers of “What if?” like he’s trying to breathe life into a corpse. He swears she’s alive, that something doesn’t add up, that we were fed lies. And every single time, it ends in fists—mine in his face, his in mine.
Because I can’t go there.
Iwon’t.
It’s easier to believe she’s gone. Easier to live with a ghost than the truth. Because if there’s even achanceshe’salive… then I’d have to face the fact that she left us. That she chose to stay gone.
And I don’t know if I can survive that.
So, I keep trying to drown her memory in bodies and booze, even though nothing touches the spot where she lives. No matter how many women I take to bed, no matter how many drinks I slam down, she’s still there.
Emerson lets out a scoff that cuts through the heavy silence between us, the sound sharp and edged with just enough irritation to pull my eyes toward him. He’s sprawled in the corner of the living room where we landed, a half-empty bottle swinging lazily from his hand, looking far too relaxed for the storm I know he feels brewing beneath the surface.
“You done sulking yet?” he mutters, not unkindly, but definitely with that familiar bite. “Because we both know what this is really about.”
I don’t answer. Just glare in his direction, jaw tight, shoulders tense. I already know where he’s going, and I’m not in the mood to walk through that minefield.
His voice softens a fraction, almost like he’s trying not to spook me. “You’re not the only one, Ro. All our minds have drifted to Berk lately.”
At the mention of her name, something snaps. A low growl rumbles in my chest before I can stop it, and I shoot up from my seat, eyes locked on him like he’s just thrown a match onto gasoline.
“Don’t,” I warn, voice rough and cracked at the edges. “Don’tfuckingbring her up right now.”
Emerson doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat. He just lifts his hands in that slow, exaggerated, drunk-diplomat way of his. A peace offering paired with a shrug that says he knows exactly how far to push me.
“I’m not trying to start shit,” he says, voice slurred but laced with something dangerously close to reason. “It’s been years, brother.Years.We need to learn how to let her go.”
His words settle like broken glass between us.
“And part of that,” he continues, slower now, more grounded, “is being able toadmitwe miss her. Even if she betrayed us in the end.”
I clench my fists so tight my knuckles ache. My chest burns with everything I don’t want to feel, and everything Ido—but can’t make peace with. Because he’s not wrong.