Page 102 of Only Be Mine

There was no doubt in me. No hesitation. Grief hadn’t erased him, not in the ways that mattered.

The drawer slid shut.

The sound wasn’t mercy.

It was finality.

My lungs remembered how to work and I sucked in a breath that burned. I pressed a hand to my mouth as if I could hold the relief in, keep it from escaping like something shameful.

Not him.

Not John.

For half a second, I wanted to laugh. To cry. To say thank God out loud and mean it with my whole body.

Then guilt seeped in, dark and immediate.

Because someone else’s loved one was still in that drawer. Someone else’s missing person. Someone else’s grief.

The relief turned sour in my chest, sharp and humiliating.

I swallowed hard, ashamed of how fiercely I’d clung to it. Ashamed that my salvation meant another family’s devastation. Ashamed that hope could still feel like this, selfish and necessary all at once.

The detective’s voice was already neutral again. “Thank you,” he said, as if I’d helped him check off an item on a list. “We’ll continue our search.”

He opened the door.

Warm hallway air rushed in, abrupt and unforgiving, washing over me like judgment.

And I stepped back into it, carrying both truths at once. That John was not dead, and that something inside me had just fractured anyway.

I stepped out and leaned against the wall like my body couldn’t remember how to stand without support.

Seth was already there.

He’d gotten closer than he was supposed to. Either someone let him pass, or he’d stopped caring about procedure. His eyes were locked on my face, desperate, searching.

“Well?” he asked, voice cracking on the word.

I swallowed. My throat felt scraped raw.

“It’s not him,” I managed with a small shake of my head.

Seth staggered back like I’d hit him.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

The hallway buzzed. A door shut somewhere. Someone laughed faintly from a distant office like this place contained normal life too.

Seth dragged a hand down his face, slow and exhausted. “I should’ve found him,” he said quietly.

The words didn’t land softly.

They landed like a confession that didn’t know it was one.

I turned my head toward him sharply. “What?”

Seth’s eyes flicked away and his jaw clenched.