Chapter 276
Nova’s POV
People always say the world doesn’t stop spinning when your heart breaks.
They’re right.
But what they don’t say—what they don’t warn you about—is how cruel it feels when everything keeps moving while you’re still stuck in the exact moment someone let go of you.
That was me.
Stuck.
Trapped in a silence so loud I could barely hear myself think.
Eldur was gone.
Not dead. Not missing.
Gone. Like a storm that swept through, rearranged everything inside me, and then disappeared, leaving wreckage and quiet behind.
He’d said he would leave me alone.
He’d meant it.
And now, every corner of my life echoed with his absence.
Returning to school was surreal.
The lecture halls, the coffee carts, the half-dead plants in every hallway—it was all exactly the same. But it wasn’t.
Everything was colder. Quieter.
Like the world had been drained of color, and someone forgot to tell the sun to shine properly.
I walked through campus like a ghost. I smiled at people, nodded at professors, even cracked a joke with Lara about how the library printer was still a demon sent from the 90s.
But I didn’t feel any of it.
It was like my heart was walking five steps behind me, dragging its feet in the dirt, whispering his name every time the wind changed.
Philosophy 112 felt like some cruel joke the universe was playing on me. Dr. Bentley was at the front of the class, passionately unraveling the complexities of moral paradoxes and ethical dilemmas, and I was… absolutely nowhere close to understanding any of it.
My chin rested on my palm, and my notes were nothing more than confused chicken scratches. Scribbles that looped into hearts and then dissolved into half-finished sentences. I wasn’t even pretending to pay attention anymore.
Because every word, every breath, somehow reminded me of him.
Eldur.
He was the definition of a paradox if there ever was one. Beautiful chaos. Fire and ice wrapped in a body that didn’t quite seem real.
Terrifying—and yet, so unbearably gentle.
He was the kind of person who could set the world on fire… and then hold you so softly you’d forget flames ever burned.
And still, I ran from him.
Because fear has this nasty habit of showing up with a megaphone and making love sound like a threat.
When I saw what Eldur could do—that crackle of unnatural power, the shimmer of something not human—I didn’t stop to ask questions.
I bolted.
I hadn’t stopped running since.
Lara met me after class, her boots squeaking slightly as she power-walked across the hallway with a mango bubble tea in one hand and concern practically written across her forehead in glitter pen.
She hooked her arm around mine like we were on a high-stakes mission. “Okay, so… confession? I stalked Eldur’s Instagram p>
My head jerked toward her. “Eldur has Instagram p>
She blinked dramatically. “Nope. But imagine if he did. It’d be all moody grayscale posts—storm clouds, cryptic quotes, maybe a random picture of a man looking into the distance like it just finished a break-up album p>
Despite everything, I actually laughed. Not a forced, robotic chuckle either. A real laugh. One that cracked through my ribs and reminded me I was still capable of feeling something that wasn’t ache.
“You’re a menace,” I told her, bumping my shoulder into hers.
“Correction,” she said, sipping loudly through her straw. “A delightfully stylish menace p>
We walked in silence for a few beats, the kind that wasn’t awkward, just… heavy with all the things left unsaid.
Then her tone shifted—softer now, fragile in a way that made me want to look away.
“Do you miss him p>
The words landed right in the hollow part of my chest. I tried to answer, but all that came out was a breath that sounded way too much like a sigh.
“I do,” I said finally. “I miss him in the weirdest, dumbest ways. Like… yesterday I heard thunder and expect him to show up. Or an hour ago, I reach for chocolate and remembered how he always had some stashed for me. I miss him like—like when your favorite song suddenly cuts off mid-chorus and you just sit there in silence, waiting for it to come back on… but it doesn’t p>
Lara nodded slowly, her bubble tea forgotten.
“You know,” she said carefully, “you could still p>
“I can’t,” I cut in, sharper than I meant. “I just… I can’t, Lara. He’s not normal p>
“You keep saying that,” she snapped, stopping in her tracks. “But you still haven’t told me what the hell that means. Is he a serial killer? A cult leader? Did he cheat on you with a vampire? Give me something, Nova p>
I stopped too, gripping the strap of my bag until the circulation in my fingers gave up.
“It’s not something you can explain over iced coffee,” I whispered. “It’s big. Bigger than us. And yeah… maybe I panicked. Maybe I didn’t give him a chance to explain. But I saw him do something I shouldn’t have. Something impossible. And I got scared. Really, truly scared p>
Lara just looked at me. Not judging. Not even mad. Just… waiting.
I stared down at the floor tiles.
“The thing is,” I said, my voice breaking like the end of a sentence someone forgot to finish, “even with all the fear, all the confusion… life without him feels wrong. Like I’m living inside a photo that’s been drained of color. I wake up, I go to class, I go to work. I eat food that tastes like nothing… and I smile, but it’s not real. It’s background noise p>
Lara stepped forward and touched my arm, grounding me.
“So what do you want to do p>
I looked her in the eye for the first time all day. My voice came out softer.
“I want to rewind. I want to go back to the part where he looked at me like I was his whole universe and I wasn’t too afraid to look back. I want to stop punishing him for being something I don’t understand p>
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away. I’d done enough crying.
“I should’ve remembered who he was to me before I saw what he was p>
Lara smiled then—small, but warm enough to melt through all the ice.
“Well,” she said, linking her arm through mine again, “the good news is, your life’s not a Netflix show. No cancellation notice. You can still fix things, y’know p>
I didn’t say anything.
But, I wanted to.
That night, sleep didn’t stand a chance.
I lay there, flat on my back, eyes locked on the ceiling like it had answers. Spoiler: it didn’t.
But his voice—his voice—kept echoing in my head. That low, storm-charged hum, like thunder wrapped in velvet. There was something raw in it. Wild. Like the world should’ve been afraid, but all I wanted was to get closer.
The way he used to say my name—slow, deliberate—like it meant something sacred. Like I was sacred.
I couldn’t stop replaying that moment at the door, his eyes visible through the peephole. Not angry. Not unhinged. Just… tired. Cracked open. Human in a way that hurt to witness.
He wasn’t the monster I had witnessed that night at the store. He was something else entirely.
Why didn’t I open the door?
Why didn’t I trust the tremble in his voice when he said he just wanted to keep me safe?
I threw off the covers.
Hoodie on. Hair in a messy bun. No plan. Just urgency.
I flew out of the apartment like I was being chased by every “what if” I’d ever buried.
Lara barely glanced up from the couch. “If you find him,” she called after me, smirking, “tell him I said hi—and sorry for calling him ’hot Satan’ that one time p>
Classic Lara.
I didn’t know where I was going. My brain had clocked out, but my heart? That thing had a map.
My feet led the way, like they had muscle memory of something deeper. And somehow—somehow—I ended up at the campus greenhouse.
Of all the places.
It didn’t even make sense… except that it did.
It was the last place Eldur had taken me before the world flipped upside down. And he wasn’t in his apartment anymore—I checked. He was gone.
He’d shown me the moonflowers that night. They only bloom after dark. He said they reminded him of me—quiet, a little hidden, but always listening.
“They’re secretive,” he’d said, brushing one with that weirdly gentle touch of his. “Like you. You don’t need noise to be loud p>
And now they were blooming again.
Mocking me. Or maybe mourning with me. I wasn’t sure which hurt more.
I sank onto the bench beside them, pulling my knees in close like they could hold me together.
“I miss you,” I whispered, eyes on the pale blossoms glowing in the dark. “Even if you scare me. Even if you’re chaos in a beautiful disguise p>
My voice cracked.
“You made me feel safe,” I said. “And I didn’t even understand why. That’s the worst part p>
I wiped my cheeks, even though I wasn’t ready to admit I’d been crying.
“I didn’t know someone could be terrifying and beautiful. That I could want something that doesn’t even make sense p>
I stared at the flowers. Waiting. For nothing and everything.
“I don’t even know if you loved me. Maybe you thought you did. Maybe I was just… some shiny, fragile thing in your strange world p>
Silence stretched around me, deep and soft.
And I let it have the rest.