Page 11

TEN

LENORE

PRESENT DAY

I wish I could tell you it was innocent at first.

That it started with late-night talks through the wall, quiet enough that the house couldn’t hear, soft enough that we could pretend it didn’t mean anything.

But that would be a lie.

Because from the very first glance, we knew.

We knew what it was, what it wasn’t allowed to be. That no matter how carefully we avoided touching, something had already started burning the moment our lives were forced under the same roof.

You were the boy who sat across from me at dinner, calling our mother “Mom” like it didn’t shatter something inside me every time. You wore the role like a mask—so convincing, so cold—while your eyes said things that never made it into words.

We weren’t raised together. We weren’t related. But that didn’t matter. Not when you looked at me like I was yours in a world that forbid it. Not when every hallway conversation felt like a sin, and every accidental brush of skin left me breathless with guilt I couldn’t drown.

You ruined me slowly.

You made me want things I wasn’t supposed to want. And I let you—God, I let you. I carved out a place for you in the parts of me that should have stayed untouched.

But you warned me, didn’t you?

“I’m not your happy ending. I’m your reason to break.”

And I broke. Over and over again, for a love that could never be real and a boy who wore my heart like a loaded gun.

Now, we are in silence at the family house, pretending there wasn’t once a night you begged me to run away with you. Pretending you don’t still haunt the spaces between my ribs.

They call us family.

But they don’t know I loved you like a secret, and you loved me like a dare.

You haunt the house like I never existed.

You walk past me like my ribs weren’t once the place you pressed your head when sleep wouldn’t come. Like I didn’t carry your secrets like bruises I chose to keep.

You looked at me like I was the villain in the story we used to write in secret, and maybe I was. I left you bleeding with no goodbye, no closure.

But at least you are alive, even if you are broken more than you were before. At least you are alive. I died a long time ago, Dorian.

Now you’re all ice where fire used to live. You barely meet my eyes. You say nothing when I say I am sorry like a prayer I still believe in.

And it kills me. Because I came back. I came back hoping there was something left worth saving for me. But all I find is wreckage. Haunted house.

And a boy who used to love me… who now only knows how to make me feel like I never mattered at all.

I stared at my reflection, trembling. The girl in the mirror looked fragile like she’d crack if someone raised their voice. Looking at me, thinking how there were things I did I wish I hadn’t, and worse, things I never dared to do.

If I could go back, I’d stay with him. I’d never leave his side. I’d trade every mistake for a second chance. But instead of open arms, he welcomed me with a severed hand of my ex.

He killed him. I don’t even flinch saying it now. He probably killed our parents too. Maybe I’m next.

And here’s the worst part. I’m okay with that.

Six years. Six goddamn years and some part of me still clings to this fantasy that we could have had a happy ending. That maybe everything I lost—everything torn from me—was leading to this one impossible thing. That he’d be there, waiting, arms open, saying I missed you .

God, how I wanted him.

God, how he made me feel.

Since I came back, reality’s been slipping. Dreams bleed into memories, and I don’t know what’s real anymore. Everything’s hazy—except him. He’s the one clear thing in all the chaos.

Dorian Thorn. My stepbrother. My obsession. My only love.

Yeah, I know how that sounds. And no, I don’t care.

Judge me if you want. Save your breath. The brain doesn’t get a say when the heart’s already decided. You can be the smartest person alive and still crumble under the weight of love. I already have.

I was his. Ready to be ruined.

My body betrayed me the second he touched me—fingers slipping over my skin like he owned it. The shame didn’t stop the want. I wanted him. I wanted him to break me, reshape me, and show me what it meant to be worshiped by a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

And it’s fucked up, it is. What scared me the most wasn’t losing him—it was that I never mattered in the first place.

My jeans slid down my legs, exposing scars I’d kept hidden from the world. Faint lines. Some fresh. Some faded. All mine. I did this to myself—on the nights I felt weak, when pain was the only thing that anchored me to reality.

I opened the mirror cabinet. On the white shelf sat a razor blade. It stared back at me. Whispered. Dared. It was calling me. I grabbed it fast, like someone might see.

The tub filled with hot water, steam curling into the air like ghost breath. I sat on the edge, metal pressed against my skin. I didn’t hesitate.

A sharp hiss escaped my lips. My eyes slammed shut. And then came the cuts—quick, clean, and real. This time, I carved the word: REAL.

I had to.

I needed proof. Proof that I wasn’t dreaming. That I was still here. That any of this still mattered.

There were other words, carved from other nights. Fake. Slut. Faith. Bitch. Dream. Not worth it. Weak. Scared. Hungry. At hungry , I broke. Tears slipped down my face like they had back then. Back when I had nothing—no food, no firewood, no clean water. Just cold and silence. Just me.

He never knew.

He thought I left him chasing something better.

But I didn’t.

Leaving him was the worst mistake of my life. I thought I was saving myself. All I did was dig a deeper grave.

The blade trembled in my hand as I etched a new word: ALIVE. My jaw clenched, breath catching, pain flaring. My skin burned. My soul screamed.

And still, I needed to feel it.

Because if I didn’t, I might have let myself die. For him. For the girl I used to be. Maybe for both.

Tears blurred my vision as the razor slipped from my hand and hit the tiled floor with a soft, final clink. The tub was full now. I stepped in.

The water scorched my open skin. I bit down a scream, then let it out anyway. A full, broken scream. Loud enough for him to hear. Loud enough to shatter walls. But he didn’t come.

He wouldn’t come.

He wouldn’t care.

I sank beneath the surface, my scream muffled by water. It filled my lungs, drowning the last of the fire in me. And even then, I didn’t fight. I didn’t care. If I couldn’t live for him, or with him, I didn’t want to live at all.

I was already broken.

This was just the proof.

There are no princes on white horses. No saviors galloping in to pull you from the wreckage. No magical rescue at the end of the road.

That’s not life.

That’s fiction.

And we? We weren’t just in different chapters. We were in different books.