Chapter 7
Ophelia
I can still hear the sound of Brayden’s nose breaking. The crack echoes through my head the entire drive home. Not because it upset me. Because it didn’t. That’s the part that makes me monstrous.
Brayden sits beside me in the backseat of the SUV clutching his ruined face while blood stains the white towel pressed against his nose. He keeps cursing under his breath, threatening lawsuits, revenge, and retaliation. I barely hear any of it.
Because Hayden is alive.
Alive.
The word doesn’t feel real.
My fingers tremble in my lap while tears silently stream down my face.
I stare blankly out the tinted window watching the streetlights blur past like ghosts.
Alive.
Not dead.
Not buried.
Not gone forever.
Alive.
Three years.
Three years of grieving him.
Three years of screaming into pillows and wishing God had taken me too. Three years of sleeping with one of his hoodies wrapped around my body because it was the only thing left that still smelled like him. Three years of loving a ghost, and the entire time… he was breathing somewhere.
My chest caves inward so painfully I press my hand against it.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it.
Why didn’t he come for me?
Why didn’t he tell me?
Why did he let me believe he was dead?
And worst of all… why did he look at me like that tonight?
Like I meant nothing.
A broken sound nearly escapes me but I force it down hard, because the Hayden I loved would’ve ran to me. The Hayden I loved would’ve held me while I cried. He would’ve kissed my forehead and told me everything was okay now.
But the man standing in that cage tonight?
That wasn’t my Hayden anymore.
That boy died the same night Justin did.
This Hayden looked dangerous.
Hard. Cold. Tattooed.
His eyes still wrecked me though.
God, those eyes.
The second he looked at me through the blood and bruises, I knew. Every piece of me knew before my brain even caught up.
And for one stupid, beautiful second… I thought he was coming back to me too.
My stomach twists remembering the way my heart leapt when he said Firefly again.
That nickname belonged to us. No one else.
Tears blur my vision harder than the image changes.
That girl wrapped around him. Her hands all over his chest. Her body pressed against his side and the fucking giggling, but what killed me was his smirk. It was like he enjoyed watching me break apart.
My breathing turns uneven instantly.
I hate her. Which is ridiculous because I don’t even know her name. But seeing another girl touch him… it felt like being skinned alive.
Hayden was mine first—mine always. We belonged to each other long before we even understood what love was.
I remember being thirteen and sneaking out to meet him at the river after midnight.
He brought me gas station snacks and wrapped me in his hoodie because I was cold.
We laid on the hood of one of the trucks he stole watching stars while he traced constellations against my skin with rough fingertips.
“See that one?” he whispers.
“I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because you suck at stars, Firefly.”
I laughed while he grinned at me then he kissed me.
Soft. Slow and sweet.
Like he already knew I was the love of his life.
A sob catches painfully in my throat.
Because tonight, that same boy looked at me like he hated me.
The SUV pulls into the driveway of my house but I don’t move.
I physically can’t.
Brayden suddenly grabs my wrist hard enough to make me wince.
“This is your fault,” he snaps, and I slowly look at him. One eye swollen shut. Blood crusted beneath his nose. Rage radiating off him in waves, and still… I feel absolutely nothing.
No guilt. No sympathy. Nothing.
All I can think about is Hayden bleeding in that cage while looking at me like he wanted to kiss me and ruin me all at once.
Brayden squeezes harder, and I bite the inside of my cheek. ”Did you know him?” he asks, and I nod.
“Yes.”
“Who the fuck is he?” he snarls.
The love of my life.
But instead, I whisper… “Nobody,”
Brayden laughs cruelly, and I want nothing more than to punch him in his broken nose.
“Well, your nobody is a fucking psycho,” he states, and something dark flashes through me instantly.
“You deserved it,” I spit, and he stares at me in disbelief.
“What?”
“You heard me. Might wanna get that wrist checked out,” I spit as tears stream harder down my cheeks now. “You deserved every second of it. He should’ve broken both of your hands,” I say, and his expression turns vicious.
“You fucking bitch,” he growls, but I rip my wrist from him and practically stumble out of the SUV before he can say anything else.
Cold air slams into my lungs as I walk to the front door, barely making it before completely falling apart.
I rush up the stairs, and the second my bedroom door closes behind me, I collapse onto the floor sobbing so hard I can’t breathe.
Alive.
Hayden is alive.
The realization crashes over me again and again like waves trying to drown me. I crawl towards my bed and yank open the nightstand drawer where I hid all the notes he’s left me. My fingers shake while I spread them across the comforter.
I’ve missed you, Firefly.
You still look at me like I hung the moon.
Would you cry for me again?
Fresh sobs rip out of me because he knew.
He watched me cry.
He watched me grieve him.
He watched me unravel. And he still hurt me tonight anyway.
Why? What did I do to deserve that?
I grab one of his old hoodies from beneath my pillow and clutch it against my chest desperately. The scent faded years ago, but I still pretend sometimes. Pretend if I breathe deeply enough, I’ll smell cigarettes, leather, and Hayden again.
“I waited for you,” I whisper into the fabric. “I never stopped loving you,” I say, my voice cracking apart. “Why would you do this to me?”
But no answer comes—only silence.
And somehow, that hurts even worse now because he isn’t dead anymore.
He’s alive. Breathing. Existing.
Choosing not to love me the same way.
That thought slices deeper than grief ever did. Because mourning a dead boy is easier than accepting that the living one came back differently.
Eventually, exhaustion drags me beneath the waves of my own heartbreak, but even then… I dream of him.
Not the angry man in the cage but my Hayden.
The boy who used to sneak through my bedroom window at night with scraped knuckles and crooked smiles. The boy who held me against his chest and whispered dreams into my hair about escaping Brimstone together someday.
In the dream, we’re laying beneath the stars, cuddled under a blanket.
“You know what my favorite sound is?” he asks softly.
“What?”
“Your laugh.”
I smile sleepily against his shoulder. “That’s cheesy,” I tell him, and he chuckles.
“Don’t care,” he says, then kisses the top of my head. “I’d burn the whole world down for that sound.”
Tears slip down my sleeping face.
Because somewhere between then and now… the world burned him first.