Chapter 52 Annalise
Annalise
I don’t know why he’s looking at me like this.
All I know is that I’m staring into the eyes of a man who looks like he’s battling the five stages of grief all in one blink.
I scoot forward, reaching for my shorts and dragging them up my legs. I’m shaking, confused, wondering what to say to wipe that glaze from his eyes.
He staggers backward before I can speak. “What…” His voice cracks, fades. Small and broken. “What have I done?”
I stare at him, speechless.
That was good. Amazing, even. I like it when it’s all teeth and scratches, hard thrusts and throat-scraping moans. I don’t want him to hold back with me.
“I don’t mind it rough. That was—”
“No.” He’s still shaking his head, still moving away from me. “That wasn’t rough, Annalise. That was fucking unacceptable.”
“Chase, no…”
His face contorts with grief. “Look at what I did to you.”
Locking my jaw, I glance down at the red marks on my skin as the sting on my neck pulses from his teeth. My eyes lift to his. “It’s nothing I haven’t done to you.” I crawl off the bed and move toward him, gesturing at his face. “You still have a scratch mark from the last time we—”
“This is different.”
“How is it different?”
“Because I’m becoming the person I tried to save you from, goddammit!” He grips his hair with both hands, mouth hanging open with disbelief. With pure agony. “Jesus…I’m so sorry.”
The bomb comes out of nowhere, exploding at my feet. Ice laces my blood as I leap off the bed. “No…” He can’t think that. Can’t believe it. “No. You’re not him. Not at all. Why would you say that?”
He collapses against the wall, hands covering his face like he’s hiding from his sins. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Do what?” I demand, voice pitching with dread.
“Make excuses for the person who hurt you. I hated it then, and I hate it now.”
“You didn’t hurt me!” Tears leak from my eyes in rivers. “That was consensual sex between two people who love each other.”
“Is that what you told yourself with him?”
A dagger twists in my gut. Horror and shock. “I don’t care if you were rough with me. I liked it. I wanted it. You don’t scare me.”
“I scare me,” he says.
No.
God, no, he can’t do this. Not now. Not after everything.
He wants me to find the parallels. He wants me to hate him.
And I don’t understand.
“What happened tonight?” I whisper. “With your parents?”
His jaw tightens. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. Something happened. Something hurt you.”
“I hurt me. I hurt you, so I hurt me.” He stabs a finger at his chest. “I was barely there, zoned out, mind blank. I don’t know where I fucking went, but it wasn’t anywhere good.”
The words rattle through me.
Because I remember.
I remember the way he always holds my face, so steady, so careful, whispering “Stay with me, Annie. Look at me.”
How he keeps me anchored, how he makes sure I’m there with him in every kiss, every touch, every shiver.
Even when it’s quick and urgent, it’s always intentional.
But tonight, something slipped. Not out of cruelty.
Out of pain. Out of a storm I can’t see.
And that’s the part that terrifies him.
He sinks to the floor, spine hitting the wall with a thud, legs splayed like the weight of it all finally caved him in.
I approach him with a chest full of lead, falling to my knees between his legs. I don’t touch him. Don’t reach. Not yet. “Chase…”
His head drops into his hands. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. Whatever this is, we can work through it—”
“You don’t get it.” His voice is hoarse, shredded.
“I looked at you, and for a second…I didn’t see you.
I didn’t see me. I just acted. On nothing.
On instinct. And it wasn’t loving. It wasn’t careful.
It was…” He trails off, eyes haunted. “It was fucking wrong. It was the opposite of everything I’ve tried to be for you. ”
“Stop,” I say firmly, crawling toward him, heart hammering. “That’s not what it was. You’re human. You’re fighting something I can’t begin to understand. But it’s going to be okay. When we get home, we’ll figure out what’s been going on, get you checked out—”
“It’s too late.” He looks at me, broken, jaded, and furious with himself.
“You deserve the world, Annie. Music and freedom and kindness and peace. You deserve so much more than what that was. What these last few months have been. I can’t keep doing this.
It’s fucking killing me. And I refuse to become someone you have to justify. ”
“Chase, please.” My heart hollows out as I reach for him, taking his hand, squeezing tight. “I told you. You’re not him.”
A beat.
A long, tormented beat.
“Yeah,” he finally says, untangling his hand from mine. “There is one difference.”
I swallow hard, not wanting to hear the answer. But I still ask. “What’s that?”
His head lifts slowly, his throat bobbing with sorrow. With dissolution.
We lock eyes.
He doesn’t say it. But I see it.
I hear the unspoken words sweeping through me like a burial hymn.
My heart careens to a dead stop inside my chest. “No…” I whisper, eyes puddling with pain. “No. Don’t you leave me. Don’t you dare walk away.”
A tear slips from the corner of his eye.
Inches its way down his cheek.
I can’t find my breath. My heartbeats. My thoughts.
The only word dancing through my mind is why.
Why is fate so cruel? So negligent?
The notion that obstacles only come to those equipped to tackle them is a sham, and clinging to hope with no promise of survival is a brutal, drawn-out demise.
Nothing is fair.
Everything is hard.
And if I don’t get through to him, we’re going to sink before we ever have the chance to truly soar.
“Listen to me, Chase. Please, listen.” I take his hand again, both hands, gripping tight and shaking sense back into him.
“I love you. I love you so much. And I know you love me. Not every moment is easy or gentle or kind. Love is full of hardships, of mistakes and regrets and misspoken words. It’s fragile—the most fragile thing in this world.
But fragile things are a gift because we protect them.
We hold them tighter. We fight like hell to keep them whole. ”
Another tear slips loose. But he shakes his head, lets out a long, hard breath. “You’re not seeing this for what it is. For who I am, for what I’m becoming. You’re acting like we’re written in the stars, but—”
“Dammit, Chase,” I cry out, stomach in knots, my dreams dancing in the wind, a gust away from unraveling. “We’re not written in the stars. We are the stars.”
His eyes glisten, jaw clenched. Fresh tears fall like rain, softening the creases on his face, the deep lines of grief and long-fought struggle.
I press his hand to my chest. “This—us—it’s worth protecting. Even on the days when we feel like we’re coming undone.”
A shudder runs through him. His fingers curl around mine, tentative but firm, like he’s afraid they’ll burn.
“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” I whisper. “I’m just asking you to stay. To fight. With me. For me. This is worth it. This is so worth it.”
His eyes close, our hands locked together, his heart beating faster. And for a long, aching moment, neither of us says a word.
We just hold on.
Like fragile things.
I press my forehead to his. “We can do this. We were meant to do this.”
His breath stutters. One shaky inhale, then another. And when his eyes finally open, they’re glassy, but clearer somehow. He’s resurfacing.
He doesn’t speak. But his grip tightens a little as he leans in.
And then, carefully, like he’s scared I might break or scream or run—
He kisses me.
Soft. Barely there.
But it says everything.
That he’s still here. That he wants to be.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine again, and we just breathe. New life, new purpose, new dreams.
And maybe tomorrow will be hard. Maybe the next day will be worse.
But right now, in this fragile, trembling moment…
I believe in us.
This isn’t the end.
It’s not over.
This will never be over.
***
Sunlight pours in from the hotel window.
My lashes flutter, eyes chafed and burning. Lids swollen. It takes a moment for reality to kick in, for my brain to rehash memories from the night before.
Chase.
A sad smile creeps across my lips as I dig my face into the pillow and sigh. My mouth is dry, limbs heavy. But I feel lighter somehow, because we made it through the worst of the storm.
I reach for him instinctively.
But my hand lands on a pile of cool sheets.
I blink fully awake, head snapping to the side.
The bed beside me is empty. Cold.
Panic lurches in my chest as I sit up too fast, the room spinning. “Chase?”
Silence.
Maybe he went for a walk. Coffee. Air.
My heart kicks harder as I glance around the room.
No hoodie on the chair. No boots by the door. No phone charger.
No sign of him anywhere.
A chill races down my spine.
I stumble out of bed, pulse spiking, yanking open the bathroom door.
Empty.
No toiletries, no used towel. No Chase.
A thousand possibilities spiral through my head, each one worse than the last. My breath comes too fast, too shallow.
He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t. Not after last night.
Not after he held me. Not after his arms wrapped around me slow and careful, like I was breakable, but so was he.
His breath was shaky against my neck, but steadying with every beat.
His fingers threaded through mine beneath the sheets, and he pulled my hand to his chest as if he was afraid he’d stop breathing without it there.
I remember the way his thumb brushed over my knuckles, grounding himself to reality. To me.
I remember his heartbeat slowing.
His lips ghosting against my forehead.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much, Annie.”
And I believed him.
I let myself fall asleep wrapped in that lie.
Warm, hopeful, safe.
And now he’s gone.
Anxiety spikes, the world narrowing around me.
I look toward the door again. Across the room. Every corner, every nook.
Then I see it.
A folded piece of paper on the nightstand.
My name is scrawled across it in the messy, slanted way he signs autographs when he’s tired.
No.
No, no, no.
I move, racing to the nightstand, my hands shaking as I reach for the note.
Hope bleeding out. Gut screaming.
And the moment my fingers brush the page, I know.
This is a goodbye.
My eyes skim the letters, the curves, the dotted I’s.
Three lines. That’s all he left me.
Annie,
I’ll forever wonder if you were my best friend or the girl I was supposed to marry.
Either way, you’re the love of my life.
Never stop chasing your midnights.
—C
Beside the note is his silver ring.
I scream.
Sob.
Break into infinite pieces.
The paper slips from my fingers as my knees hit the floor.
And just like that—
All the music dies.
Night Song
I used to chase the sun
A fire bold and bright
Now I’m standing in the ashes of a hollow, wasted fight
Every promise turned to smoke
A matchstick in the sky
A dying light, a smothered flame
Our pieces drifting by
But you, you never faded
Even when the world turned cold
A candle out of reach
A spark I couldn’t hold
Do you hear the echoes?
Do they haunt you in the night?
All the words we left unspoken
Longing for the light
If I fall, will you still catch me?
If I run, will you let go?
I’ve been lost inside this winter
Tracing footsteps in the snow
We used to dance in time with thunder
Never feared the lightning strike
But now the storm’s gone silent
Lost its will to fight
And so we dance on broken glass
To notes we left unsung
A song that never started
Ashes on my tongue
Maybe we were born to drift
Lost in spaces we can’t name
Not every loss is final
Some just burn without the flame
I used to chase the sun
A fire bold and bright
Now I watch the embers fade
Waiting for the night