11
KAI
The drink in my hand had gone warm a long time ago. I wasn't even sure how long I'd been standing there, twenty minutes, maybe more. It didn't matter. Nothing really did.
Nothing except her.
Selena.
She stood across the courtyard in a blue dress that made her look like everything I had forgotten I'd lost. I couldn't look away.
"You good, man?" Derek nudged me. "You've been staring at the same spot for ten minutes."
I didn't answer. Mike followed my line of sight and let out a low whistle. "Holy shit. Is that Selena?"
Hearing her name hit harder than I expected. It landed somewhere deep in my chest, sharp and familiar. My North Star. My Selena. I hadn't said those words in years. Hadn't even let myself think them. I had trained myself not to remember the way she used to look at me, like I was something worth choosing.
"She looks…" Derek trailed off, clearly trying to find the right word.
"Incredible," Mike finished. "Like, actually incredible. Has she always been like that?"
I frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
Mike shrugged. "I don't know. She's just… different. People are literally turning to look at her."
I glanced around, and he wasn't wrong. Heads turned as she moved through the crowd. People smiled at her, not out of politeness, but because they wanted to. There was something about her now, something magnetic, that I couldn't remember noticing before. Had she always been like this? Or had I just never seen her properly?
The last time I saw her forced its way into my mind. My wedding day. I had been cruel, deliberately cruel. I'd been so focused on Jade, so convinced that Selena was something holding me back, that I hadn't even realized what I was destroying. The words I said to her that day still echoed in my head if I let them. She had left without a fight. No scene. No begging. Just… gone. And I hadn't gone after her.
At the time, I thought I was choosing freedom. I thought I was walking toward something better. I didn't know I'd spend the next few years trying to forget her, only to realize that nothing ever came close. That the cage I thought I was escaping had actually been the only place I'd ever felt grounded.
Derek nudged me again. "She's wearing blue. She never wore colors like that before. Always black or grey. She's… brighter now."
Brighter. That was the word. The blue dress made her look alive in a way I didn't remember. It suited her. No, more than that, it felt like it belonged to a version of her I had never allowed her to become.
"She looks happy," Mike added quietly.
Happy. I watched her laugh at something her aunt said, her hand lightly brushing her sister's arm. There was no hesitation in her movements, no quiet waiting the way there used to be. She existed in the moment, like she knew exactly where she belonged. She had never looked like that with me. With me, she had always been waiting. Always hoping. Always wanting something I never gave her.
Jade appeared beside me and started talking about the food, or the music, something I should have been listening to. I nodded automatically, responding just enough to seem present. She eventually walked away. I couldn't remember a single word she had said. My attention had already drifted back to Selena.
She had moved to the edge of the garden, away from the crowd. She stood alone now, her phone in her hand, smiling at something on the screen. That smile felt different. I had seen her smile countless times before, but this one was softer, steadier. There was a certainty to it, like she knew something I didn't. I found myself wondering who she was texting. A friend, maybe. Her mother. Someone important.
The thought didn't sit right with me. It shouldn't have mattered. She was still Selena. Still the girl who waited on her balcony every Friday night. Still the one who had loved me without hesitation. People like that didn't just move on. They didn't just forget. She had loved me too much for that.
…Right?
The thought felt uncertain the moment it formed, like it didn't quite fit anymore. But I held onto it anyway, because the alternative, that she had truly let me go, felt worse than anything I was ready to face.
She slipped her phone back into her bag and took a breath before turning toward the party again. And then our eyes met.
Everything around me faded. For a brief moment, it felt like the entire world narrowed to that single point of contact between us. Something flickered across her face. Not longing. Not love. Something quieter. Something I couldn't quite read. It was gone almost immediately, but it left something unsettled behind. She didn't look away right away. She held my gaze for just a second longer than necessary, and it was enough to send a surge of something dangerous through me.
She still sees me. That had to mean something.
I thought about moving toward her, about saying something, anything, that could close the distance between us. But my body didn't cooperate. My feet stayed rooted to the ground.
Then she looked away. Just like that. No hesitation. No second glance. She turned and disappeared back into the crowd as if the moment hadn't mattered at all.
I stood there, still holding the same warm drink, my thoughts stuck on a loop I couldn't break. She had looked at me. She hadn't ignored me. That had to mean something. Didn't it?
Hope settled in my chest before I could stop it. Unwanted, but persistent. She was wearing blue. She looked alive. She had met my eyes. Maybe there was still something there. Maybe things weren't completely over.
Or maybe… I just didn't know her anymore.
I pushed that thought away almost immediately, refusing to let it take hold. Because if that was true, if she had really moved on, then I had lost her for good.
And I wasn't ready to accept that.