Page 237 of Sage Haven

But it was never him.

It never would be.

And even knowing that, it didn’t stop me from looking.

I still searched.

Like a fool. Like a woman with hope stitched into her arms, even though it bled her dry.

Not that it was any different from the night we first met.

Back then, I wanted him too.

Longed for him in ways I never fully understood. Thought about him constantly, obsessively. Even when he wasn’t mine. Even when he was never meant to be.

And then, for one impossible, fleeting moment—it felt like he was.

For one moment, I belonged somewhere. To someone. To him.

And now he was gone again.

The cruel irony of fate played its melody in my ears, soft and sharp, threading its way through my days.

A song of what-ifs and never-weres. A song that never reached its crescendo.

It just… faded. Slow and silent, into something I couldn’t quiet. A song I was beginning to think would outlive me.

Sometimes I wondered how things would have turned out if I had never left Sanele. If I had never taken that road that led me to Providence. To him.

Had I stayed, would life have been simpler? Would I have found peace? Would I still be alive?

Or would I have merely kept drifting—empty, silent—haunted by a hollow I never knew existed until I met Reich.

I told myself I didn’t regret it. That I wouldn’t change any of it.

Not a single second. Not even the hurt.

Because he healed me more than I ever thought I deserved. He put me back together in places I thought would stay broken forever.

But the truth was…he also carved something out of me when he left.

Something vital.

And I couldn’t fill the space he left behind.

The emptiness that clung to me.

A ghost that followed each step I took. A shadow that whispered his name in the silence between my heartbeats.

It was quieter than grief but heavier.

It was the kind of absence that hurt because I could still feel him—in every corner of my space. In every thread of my skin. In every memory I wasn’t ready to surrender.

So, I knelt and I begged.

Begged that somehow, some way, our paths would cross again. That the same stars that cursed us might show mercy and guide him back. That the universe might give me one more moment.

A breath. A look. Anything.