Page 66 of From the Wreckage

Everett

The cabin is too damn quiet.

No music. No laughter. No sound of her bare feet padding across my floorboards. Just the steady hum of the fridge and the tick of the clock that won’t shut up, reminding me of everything I’ve lost.

My jaw throbs where Grayson’s fist landed, the bruise a sharp, angry ache every time I move. I didn’t ice it or clean up the blood right away, either. I let it dry on my lip until the metallic taste made me sick. Maybe I wanted the punishment.

I deserve worse.

Her voice keeps replaying in my head, broken and desperate: “Say something. Fight for us. Please.”

And what did I give her? Nothing. Not a word. Not a damn thing.

Because the truth is, I couldn’t. Not with her father standing there, his eyes burning through me like I’d stolen something sacred. Which I had.

I drag a hand down my face, staring at the empty couch where she used to curl up, the dent in the cushion proof she was real. That we were real. Now, it feels like I dreamed it. Like she never sat here with her coffee or fell asleep against my chest while lying in my bed.

I almost reach for my phone. Almost type out the words I should’ve said: I love you. I’m sorry. Please don’t give up on me.

But my thumb hovers over the screen, frozen. What would it change? Her dad’s right. I’m too old, too scarred, too fucking broken. I’ll never be the man she deserves.

With a growl, I toss the phone aside and drop my head in my hands. My chest feels hollow, like she tore something vital out of me and took it with her.

The silence presses in, suffocating. Heavy. Unforgiving.

I tell myself I’ll learn to live with it. That this is what I want. That letting her go is the only way to protect her.

But the truth seeps in anyway, bitter and relentless.

I didn’t protect her. I abandoned her. Just like her mother.

And now all I have left is the silence and the wreckage of a love I was too much of a coward to fight for.

I’ve lost all sense of time as I wallow in my misery. The sun comes up and sets, then the night blankets the land. Unlike what’s inside me, the moon and stars illuminate the blackness. Like the night we danced on the dock.

The darkness presses in again, swallowing me whole. Complete blackness. No light penetrates it. Not with her gone.

At some point, I succumb to it, closing my eyes and letting it drown me. Seeking the sweet bliss of sleep to stop the endless pain.

Days pass in a blur. The silence becomes my only companion, pressing down on me until I can’t breathe. The endless silence of the cabin reminds me she’s not here. Time stretches on.

Sometimes I swear I still hear her laugh, or the soft pad of her feet across my floor. Once, I even reached for the coffee mugs—hers and mine—before I remembered I was alone.

I’ve stared at the coffee maker I bought to make her iced lattes until my eyes blurred, knowing it’ll do nothing but collect dust now. That machine will never run again. Not without her here to drink from it.

By morning on the—fifth? Sixth?—day since my world imploded, the walls close in. I can’t sit still. Can’t take another second of it.

I step onto the dock. The boards groan beneath my boots, the air crisp with pine and lake water.

Across the water, the world is awake. Sunlight glints off ripples, and then I see them. Two figures in the driveway of Grayson’s cabin. Even from here, I’d know her anywhere—her long hair, her slight frame.

She hugs her dad tight, clinging like she never wants to let go. When she finally steps back, she waves and slides into a dark blue SUV.

The engine rumbles and gravel crunches beneath the tires. My chest lurches as the broken pieces of me beg—irrationally and desperately—for her to turn my way. For one wild second, I almost believe it. I half-step toward my door, convinced I’ll see her vehicle pull into my driveway.

But she doesn’t. She turns left. Away from me. Away from everything we were.

The dock sways beneath me, though I know it’s steady. My grip tightens on the railing, my pulse a drum in my ears.

August twenty-third. I know the date without checking, but I pull out my phone anyway, staring at the numbers like they’re carving themselves into my skin. The day she leaves for Willow Glen University.

The blade drives deep, cleaving me in half. I try to convince myself it was just a summer fling. Two broken souls reaching for comfort in the wreckage of their shattered pasts.

But that’s a lie. We were so much more.

As her SUV disappears down the road, it feels like the wreck all over again. Metal crunching, glass shattering, breath ripping from my lungs. Only this time there’s no impact, no twisted steel, no screaming tires.

Just silence, and the sight of her driving away.

My eyes burn as the truth sears through me.

The love of my life just drove away in a blue SUV.

And she’s never coming back.