40. Trace
Trace
I didn’t make it far.
The second I stepped out of that bathroom; I nearly lost it.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. My pulse wrecked—still beating out the rhythm of her against me, her mouth, her fucking chaos.
Gripping the banister so hard it hurt. She was everywhere. In my lungs. On my skin. Beneath my fingernails like ash I couldn’t scrub off. I didn’t know if I was going to be sick or punch through the goddamn wall.
I left her there.
Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.
I would’ve fucked her like I meant it. No hesitation. No mercy.
I would’ve kissed her like I remembered every second of her.
Like I missed her.
Like I never stopped loving her.
I would’ve ruined her—and this time, there wouldn’t have been a way to come back from it.
What the fuck are we doing?
I heard her voice on loop. Not just from tonight. From back then—that summer, every night since I walked away. Her laugh. Her questions. Her anger. That soft Scarlett she only was when it was real.
God, I didn’t want to leave.
I didn’t want to leave her back then.
I just—couldn’t.
She was sunlight. Chaos. Reckless grace. Wild and sharp and too fucking good. And I was… fucked up. Bound to people I couldn’t shake. Tied to promises I couldn’t break. Darkness I never chose.
Loving her felt like dying and being reborn all at once.
And back then, I wasn’t ready to die for her.
That’s what no one ever understood.
I didn’t leave because I didn’t care.
I left because I did .
Because she was everything I couldn’t have without becoming someone I didn’t know how to be.
Because if I let her in—really let her in—she’d see it all.
The blood.
The wreckage.
The part of me that doesn’t know how to stop breaking things it loves.
And tonight? She looked at me like she still wanted it anyway. Like maybe she still wanted me.
Even after everything.
I almost gave in.
I wanted to.
But I can’t lose her again. Not like that.
Not like this.
I’d rather walk out half-alive than stay and destroy the one thing that’s ever made me feel like maybe—just maybe—I wasn’t too far gone.