I’d never seen her this way and it was terrifying. I went to rub her shoulder, trying to offer comfort, but she brushed me away.
She’d never resisted my touch. The sting of her rejection felt like a stab.
“Ellie, you’re scaring me.” My own voice shook. My entire body was shaking. I thought I knew everything about her. I’d spent years learning to decipher her veiled expressions, read between the lines, and see through her carefully constructed walls. I knew Ellie, but I didn’t knowthisEllie.
“Why don’t you go lie down and rest, you’re clearly not feeling well.”
Her head snapped at me. “So now you think you can tell me what to do?”
Her tone was unrecognizable. She was a force, never one to back down, but we didn’t speak to each other like this. This wasn’t her. It wasn’t us.
“Ellie, talk to me. Please.” I stepped closer. “I want to understand. Help me understand so we can figure this out.” Gathering her face in my hands, I stroked my thumbs over her tear-stained cheekbones. “Querida mía, let me in,” I rasped.
Her eyes were pleading at me even if her body was retreating. A war was raging inside of her, but I was feeling more and more like the casualty.
Slipping away from me again, her expression hardened asshe moved away. I followed her back to my dorm room, my stomach sinking deeper with every step.
When she turned to face me, her glassy eyes were distant, looking at me, but not really.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said quietly.
Her words hit like a punch, taking my breath. “What are you saying? Are you breaking up with me?” I said it almost like a joke, because it seemed ridiculous, despite my pulse heating in panic beneath my skin.
She didn’t answer, but the slow nod of her head was deafening.
My voice cracked. “Is there someone else?”
Her eyes flashed to mine, red and full of hurt. “What?! No, never. There’s no one else,” she said firmly. “I just…I can’t be with you. I need to be alone.”
I couldn’t process it. There was no world where Ellie and I weren’t together.
But when I looked around my dorm, I saw it—her stuff was gone. Even the stuff she usually kept here. She’d packed while I wasn’t paying attention, removing every trace of herself from my life. The necklace I bought her with our initials—the one she never took off—was sitting on my nightstand. This wasn’t impulsive. She’d planned to leave. To leave me.
My blood turned to ice, the shock of what I was seeing—what I knew was happening without fully realizing it yet.
“I love you,” I choked out, desperation creeping into my voice.
“I love you, too,” she said with a quiver, heavy tears streaming down her face—dropping her head, still avoiding my gaze.
And then she walked out the door. I stood stunned, in disbelief at what had just happened.
By the time I came to my senses and chased after her, shewas already in her car. I banged on her window, begging her to stop, to stay, to explain. She didn’t.
And just like that, she was gone.
I didn’t know she would cut me out of her life completely. I didn’t know the gravity of what had occurred.
Not yet.
Six years passed before I saw her again.
It would take another four years before I’d get the chance to fight for her. And this time, I wouldn’t let her go.
CHAPTER 1
Elyse
THIS ISN’T PERSONAL
