If you loved me, you would’ve chosen me.
Don’t offer me a second chance like it’s mercy.
My vision blurs. I blink hard and add one more fragment, quieter.
Hope is a door I nailed shut.
I stare at it. At all of it. At the proof that even now—after eight years—I can still be gutted by his existence.
The car hums under us. LA stretches out like a glittering trap. And somewhere behind us, in a studio I can’t stop seeing in my mind, Ollie Marshall is still breathing the same air as me.
Vinny turns down a street, and the headlights sweep across a line of palm trees. My phone screen glows in the dark. I stare at the words and feel something settle in my chest, heavy and final.
It can’t happen.
It can’t.
Because nothing has changed.
There are more out players now. More stories. More proof the world didn’t end. And still—he didn’t call. He didn’t choose me. He didn’t come back until the universe shoved us into the same room and forced us to look at each other.
That isn’t a second chance. That’s coincidence, and coincidence isn’t enough to rebuild what he broke.
I lock my phone, lean my head against the window, and close my eyes. I let the last thought settle like a verdict:It can never happen.
5
OLLIE
Hope dwindleslike the last remnants of kindling in an open fire. Flames take the splinters fast and without mercy, leaving behind heat that doesn’t comfort—just stings.
Acceptance is a bitter emotion.
But as I watch Rafe walk away, my heart lodged somewhere in my throat, I know that’s what I have to do.
For now.
Because sometimes not everything turns to ash. Sometimes you can lose the flame and still keep the ember. And I made a promise—to myself, to Rafe, even if he’s never heard it—that I will find a way back to him. Even if the only path I’m allowed is one made of apology and closure. Even if the end of it is forgiveness with no future attached.
I don’t get to force the man who’s always had my heart to be mine.
But I can try.
I can try to be better than the worst version of myself. I can try to do the right thing in the ways I’m capable of. I can try to keep showing up, even when the person I want most can’t—or won’t—meet me there.
I breathe in, slow, like Maria, my incredible charity program head, taught one of the kids yesterday when he got too wound up during drills. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The green room is too bright, too quiet as I stand still until the echo of their footsteps fades. Only then do I let my shoulders drop.
The hallway is a blur. The studio staff keep moving like nothing happened—like heartbreak isn’t a live organism that just walked through their green room wearing a wedding ring on his right hand.
I leave the building with my cap low and my head down, Adrian Vale’s parting joke ringing faintly in my ears, Cal’s warm handshake a ghost on my palm.
Outside, LA is warm and oppressive, the night air adding to the leftover heat of stage lights. I get into the car that’s waiting for me and head to Marco’s.
It takes thirty minutes of traffic and willpower to get across the city. Thirty minutes of my brain replaying Rafe’s face when I said his name. Thirty minutes of wanting to rewind time so badly it feels like a physical ache.
Thirty minutes of questions I’ll never have the right to ask.
