Chapter 21
Calhoun’s POV~
They finally turned the lights out on me.
The barista’s “Sir, we’re closing” was polite, the kind of politeness you give someone who’s been broken in public. I didn’t argue. I let the door close behind me and the city chewed me up.
Streets I’d walked a thousand times felt new and hostile and harsh and senseless to me. Every step was a replay of how I’d been a coward, how Carmela had waltzed back into my life and I’d folded like a cheap suit. The what ifs came at me in several waves: if she’d never shown up, if I’d named Elodie a week earlier, if, just once, I’d chosen the hard thing when it mattered. The questions didn’t fix anything. They only sharpened the ache in my chest.
The sky tore open. Thunder rattled my bones and the rain came down like it wanted to wash the city clean of me. People scattered for shelter. I walked into the storm because nowhere else felt like shelter anymore.
I said her name until it meant nothing and everything at once. Elodie, Elodie, Elodie… my tongue was like a rosary for a prayer I’d never said when it counted. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I clutched it like a lifeline. Mila’s message lit up the screen.
‘It’s over. Come home p>
Those words folded me inward. I didn’t have a clean way to breathe around them. I dropped to my knees on the slick sidewalk, rain slapping my face, and let myself break. My sobs were small and useless against the storm. The city moved around me while I sat there and emptied out.
I don’t remember how I ended up at her building. The apartment block loomed like some impossible idea I used to inhabit. Standing there felt obscene, like a thief caught outside the place he used to call refuge. I didn’t have the courage to knock. So I curled up on the cold steps and let the doorway be like a thin shield. Being close to her home was the smallest mercy I could steal.
I hadn’t slept properly for days. My clothes were sodden, my teeth chattering in a way that felt permanent. The cold slid into me slowly. Somewhere between numbness and sleep, I dreamed of the life I’d ruined.
In the dream she forgave me without hesitation. We left that night, no talks, no second-guessing; we boarded my plane and I announced her to the world. I proposed without theatrics because I’d finally learned how to be brave.
I woke with a faint, stupid smile and the world closing around it. Hypothermia crept in like a slow thief. My limbs folded, and the dream kept replaying, her face, the way she’d said my name, the impossible idea that love could forgive one so bone-deeply broken.
When my consciousness thinned, my smile slackened. The rain kept on. The city didn’t notice me. I faded into the steps and the dark, and the last thing that hovered before everything went black was the echo of a life I’d been too proud to choose when it mattered.
_____________
When I came back to consciousness, it felt like my skull had been split open. Every muscle in my body screamed, my arms weighed down like lead, but I forced my eyes open. Strange ceiling. Strange walls. For a second, I thought I was already dead.
I tried to push myself up, but then her voice cut through the fog.
“Stay down p>
My heart skipped. Elodie?
Her name slammed into me like a fist. My chest cracked open and before I could think, I grabbed her, pulled her against me like a man clinging to his last breath.
“Elodie… you forgave me,” I choked, words tumbling out of me in a rush. “I know I destroyed everything, I’ll fix it, I swear, I’ll spend every damn day proving it. Just don’t shut me out. Please. Please, I can’t p>
I held her like she was air and I was drowning. But she didn’t soften. She didn’t even breathe the way she used to when she was in my arms.
“Get off me, Calhoun.” Her voice was cold enough to freeze my bones. She shoved me back, but not violently. “I only brought you in because of Mila. If you had died on my doorstep, it would’ve destroyed her. That’s all this is p>
Her words sliced cleaner than claws ever could. I stared at her, desperate, waiting for something, anger, tears, anything but her eyes were dead. No fire. No warmth. Not even hate. Just emptiness.
And it gutted me.
“Elodie My voice broke as I whispered her name. I said it again, softer this time, begging without pride, because I had nothing left.
She didn’t even look at me. Her gaze slid past me like I wasn’t worth the effort.
“I called Mila. She’s coming to take you home. Don’t come back here. Don’t look for me again. I’m done p>
“Elodie I rasped, desperation clawing at my throat.
Her eyes finally met mine, but it wasn’t mercy, it was the cruelest truth I’d ever faced. “It ended the second you chose Carmela p>
Her voice was flat, but the finality in it was absolute. A death sentence.
My chest caved. I felt it, like something inside me split open, and all the air in the room vanished. I reached for her face without thinking, my hand shaking, just needing to touch her one last time. But she stepped back. She denied me even that.
That broke me more than anything.
“Elodie The name was raw, stripped of all the power I once carried. “Tell me there’s something. Anything. I’ll crawl, I’ll bleed, I’ll burn the fucking world down if that’s what it takes. Just… don’t let this be the end p>
Her stare didn’t waver. Her lips parted, and the single word she gave me shattered me to dust.
“No p>
The sound of it hollowed me. I actually forgot how to breathe. My hand fell uselessly to my side. My vision blurred, my throat burned, and still the tears came, no matter how hard I tried to fight them.
“Okay,” I whispered, broken. “Okay p>
Something vital inside me cracked then, something that would never heal.