Chapter 3 Love and Leave
The sun was just beginning to set, casting an orange glow across the room as I sat at my desk, staring blankly at my tablet screen.
My fingers hovered over the stylus, unsure of what to create next.
The art was flowing as it always had, a constant that kept her tethered to something, anything, when everything else felt uncertain.
I'd spent the entire day in a haze, moving through the motions, caring for Arlo, doing what needed to be done, but my mind was elsewhere. My heart was somewhere far away, caught between the ache of wanting to stay and the need to leave. It was the worst kind of conflict
Night had fallen by the time I got him to bed.
Arlo was still groggy from his medication, the painkillers making his words slow and syrupy, his eyes heavy but searching for mine like they were the only compass he had left. I sat beside him, pulling the blanket up over his chest, and he caught my wrist before I could pull away.
"Stay," he murmured, his voice dragging like wet ink across paper. "Please, Berrie. Just—stay."
His head lulled against my shoulder as I adjusted his pillow. I didn't mean to hold my breath, but I did, just for a second. Just long enough to feel the familiar ache in my chest.
"You smell divine. You're my calm," he whispered. "You always have been. My peace and my storm, somehow... love and beauty in the same breath."
I froze.
"You make everything quiet. You always did. Even before I knew what love felt like, it was you."
His words slurred, warm and reverent, the kind of sweetness he never gave me sober. Not like this. Not this raw.
"I don't even know how I got you, Berrie," he said, voice cracking, "but I do know I'm losing you."
My eyes burned.
"You're just high, Arlo," I whispered, lying with a soft smile he couldn't see in the dark.
He shook his head against my shoulder. "Maybe, but I can feel it, just like I knew before everyone left. You're somewhere else now."
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That I was here, still taking care of him, still folding his laundry and warming soup and untangling the cords of our life.
I wanted to tell him how much I loved him.
How I had memorized the ridges of his fingers and the sound of his breath when he was deep in thought.
But then I remembered the letters and Lyra. The way he wrote about her like she was the moon and he was the tide.
I closed my eyes. The ache swallowed me whole.
That night, I stayed. I sat beside him, holding his hand as he drifted to sleep, whispering things like "angel" and "my forever" and "don't go," until the weight of his head finally went still.
I didn't sleep. I cried and then I pulled out my tablet. I needed escape. Art had always been sanctuary, and today I ran to it like it was the only safe place left.
And I began to draw.
She came to me fully formed, Princess Yuki.
Her hair ink-dark with streaks of fire. Her kingdom gone, her heart broken.
She'd been the Chosen once, fated to save the realm, but they picked another.
A new warrior. A better one. So she fled.
Not to return. Not to be chosen again. But to choose herself.
I sketched panel after panel, dark and muted backgrounds to frame her loneliness, her silent pain rendered in silent screams, her battle scars inked with thick sumi-e lines.
I used textured digital brushes to show the roughness of the path she walked alone.
I'd never created anything this fast. This raw.
By sunrise, I had half a storyboard. The pilot scene: Yuki watching the man she once loved give his sword to someone else. The final shot of the episode, her turning from the flames, a map in one hand, and a dagger in the other.
Then, I was on autopilot. Taking care of him. Changing his bandage. Feeding him breakfast I barely tasted myself. He smiled at me like I was light. After a while, March showed up at the door in her patched leather jacket and helmet tucked under her arm.
"You need a ride," she said without waiting for me to answer.
I did. We rode with the wind sharp against our cheeks. I leaned into the curves. It was the only time I felt free, speed and noise replacing the ache in my chest. She didn't ask what I was thinking. Just handed me a drink at some overlook and leaned on her handlebars.
"I'm looking at apartments," I said quietly. My fingers tightened around the steaming cup of coffee in my hands. "A few cities over. Just... starting to plan."
March didn't speak at first. She was leaning back against the wall of the little gas station we'd stopped at mid-ride, the buzz of her motorcycle still cooling beneath us. Her sunglasses slid down the bridge of her nose just enough that I could see her eyes.
"You're really going?" she asked, voice hushed.
I nodded. "I think I have to."
The words tasted like betrayal because every time I thought about leaving, I remembered the way he looked at me now.
The way he reached for me and held my hand like it was the only thing tethering him to earth.
The way he whispered things he'd never dared say before when the painkillers made him soft and sweet and honest.
And he believed it. He really believed we still had a future together, and I.
.God, I wanted to believe it too. But I couldn't unknow what I knew now.
Couldn't forget the way my heart had shattered when I found those letters.
How each word had been a little love song to someone else. My name hadn't been in any of them.
He hadn't meant to break me but that didn't make the cracks hurt less.
"I feel guilty," I admitted, the words barely above a whisper. "Planning all this while he still thinks we're going to get married one day. Move somewhere quieter. Build a garage of his own. He talks about it sometimes, like we're living the same dream. Like I'm still dreaming with him."
March's mouth twisted.
"Feb..."
"He looks at me like I'm his forever, and all I can think is, I'd have stayed. I'd have stayed forever, even now, even broken, if I hadn't found those letters. If I didn't know..." My throat closed. "I feel like I'm sneaking out of something I promised to survive."
March looked down at her chipped nails. Her voice was rough when she finally said, "Yeah, well. He didn't feel guilty writing love letters to someone else while you were folding his laundry."
I flinched.
Her eyes darted to mine immediately. "Shit. I'm sorry."
I stared at her.
"I didn't mean it like that," she rushed. "I'm angry for you and I hate that you feel bad for taking care of yourself! God, Feb, he should've burned those letters. Or better yet, never written them at all."
I swallowed hard. "But he didn't and I still love him."
"I know." March leaned her shoulder into mine, her voice gentler now. "But loving someone doesn't mean you have to stay somewhere that hurts."
I closed my eyes and exhaled. Because she was right.
And still... I hated that I could already see how I'd pack my sketchbooks and drawing tablet into a box. How I'd leave the mugs we collected on road trips. How I'd whisper goodbye to the version of me who once thought this was the end of the road. The happy one.
Maybe one day, he'd stand in an empty apartment and realize I hadn't left because I stopped loving him.
I left because he hadn't known how to love me back.