Page 135 of The Story Between Us

Seriously?

Livvie stared at her laptop screen, waiting for the triumph, the resolution, the moment when the hero would find love waiting for him in the aftermath of battle.

Instead,

He found Elara among the fallen, her eyes already closed, her hand reaching toward a future she had secured but would never grasp.

No.

Livvie scrolled back, certain she’d missed something—a twist, a resurrection, a last-minute save. But there was nothing. Just a hero walking away from a victory that had cost him everything into a future he didn’t want.

The prophecy had been fulfilled. The kingdom was saved. And Aldric walked alone into the dawn, carrying nothing but the weight of all he had lost.

And then he fell, the end taking him.

THE END?

Livvie grabbed the legal pad she’d been scribbling on and flipped to a fresh page, pen flying across the paper.

NO.

Why did you DO this?

The prophecy said TOGETHER. “Two hearts, one blade, one flame.” TOGETHER. Not alone. Not⁠—

Elara can’t be dead. She was the whole point. The point of the journey, the reason any of it mattered.

And yes, he chose Kaela—that feels right—but to kill Elara?

Have you lost your mind?

She stopped. Stared at the notes she’d made—three pages of frantic scribbles, corrections, suggested rewrites. As if Nate would ever see them. As if he would ever speak to her again. As if she hadn’t left her heart on his porch and driven away without looking back.

She threw the pen across the room.

It hit the wall and clattered to the floor, coming to rest next to the sad plant from her desk—the one she’d carried out of Pemberton yesterday along with her laptop and the shreds of her professional dignity.

Old habits. The fixer who couldn’t stop fixing, even when there was nothing left to fix.

She closed the laptop. Pushed it away. Pressed her palms against her eyes until she saw stars.

The apartment was too small. Too quiet. Too full of reminders—her suitcase still half unpacked, the Maple Lake clothes mixed with her NYC clothes, the winter hat sitting on her dresser like an accusation.

She couldn’t stay here.

She grabbed her coat. The winter hat too—the one he’d bought her, though she tried not to think about that. And she walked out into the gray September afternoon, heading nowhere in particular, just away.

Her feet carried her toward the park without conscious decision. Past the bodega on the corner, past the dry cleaner with the flickering neon sign, past all the places that should have anchored her to this city but somehow didn’t anymore. Twenty minutes of walking, and the buildings gave way to bare trees, the traffic noise fading to something almost like quiet.

Central Park stretched before her, beautiful in that stark, skeletal way of late autumn.

Bejeweled branches against a pewter sky, rust and gold against the gray. Joggers in bright colors, dog walkers with their charges, families bundled against the cold.

It reminded her of Maple Lake.

Everything reminded her of Maple Lake now.

Livvie walked faster, hands shoved in her coat pockets, the winter hat warm against her ears. The paths wound through the Ramble, past the reservoir, into stretches of trees that almost seemed like wilderness if you squinted and ignored the distant taxi horns.