Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
nathaniel
I wake slowly. For the first time in weeks—months, perhaps—I feel rested. My body is heavy with something I scarcely recognize: ease. There’s no edge of vigilance, no sharp corner of dread. Only a quiet that feels almost foreign, a calm I do not trust.
Memory seeps back in fragments. Yesterday returns to me in a trickle, each image another jolt of recognition.
The frantic drive across the city. The hollow terror of standing outside her dorm, of knowing the truth could no longer remain buried.
The sick weight in my chest as I showed her everything I had hidden—the proof of what I’d done, the reach of my control.
And then, her silence. The unbearable stillness of her face as she absorbed it. I felt myself splinter under it, watching her weigh me, terrified that I had finally revealed too much. The moment she turned from me, I thought it was over.
I fell to my knees and I begged. I begged her not to go. I begged her to let me remain by her side.
It was the first time in my life I had ever brought myself so low, but there was no shame in it.
If anything, it felt inevitable. There isn’t a worthier cause than her—no height I would not abandon, no dignity I would not surrender.
And if there is anyone I would allow to trample me into the ground, it is Olivia.
Every truth I laid bare should have driven her from me. And yet—miraculously, impossibly—she stayed.
The memory is dizzying in its sweetness. To be chosen despite the rot she now knows lives in me is euphoria—heady, intoxicating, almost unbearable in its mercy.
The hours that followed were a fevered blur.
I couldn’t let her go. I held her like my body alone could bind her to this place, to this life with me.
I kissed every inch of her skin, relished the taste of her, the way she broke apart in my arms again and again.
I gave myself over to worship—slow, desperate—until she was boneless beneath me, sex-drunk and sated, her lashes fluttering shut only when exhaustion claimed her.
Even then, I kept her close, hoarding each one of her exhales, greedy for the reassurance of her weight pressed into mine.
But the memory of her surrendering to me in the dark does not lie quiet.
It unfurls inside me, swiftly sharpening into need—thick, immediate. I want her again. I want to have her plush body flush against mine, taste the sleep-heavy sweetness of her skin, feel her shiver awake beneath my hands.
The hunger sends me rolling toward the other side of the bed, reaching instinctively for her—
But the sheets are cold.
I jolt upright, eyes sweeping the room.
She’s gone.
My hand falls into emptiness. No lingering heat, no hollow pressed into the mattress, no trace of her perfume caught in the sheets. Only cool linen, unmarked and indifferent, as if she had never been here at all.
A flicker of unease catches in my chest. For a moment, I wonder if I dreamed it—if the night was nothing more than the invention of a desperate mind, an exquisite hallucination conjured from fear and longing.
Could I really have imagined something so vivid?
It would be a particularly cruel trick of the mind, to give me such a vision only to strip it away. Cruel, and effective. Because now I can’t tell if I’m waking from a dream or stumbling into a nightmare.
I force myself to think. Wallowing does me no good. What I need are next steps. Find her. Persuade her. Secure her return. That’s the only path forward. It’s what I’ve always done—dissect a problem, strategize, execute.
But the clarity doesn’t come. My lungs constrict instead, a pressure rising as though something heavy has settled against my sternum. My breaths are shorter, shallow without meaning to be. My pulse drags loud in my ears, faster than it should.
I push myself off the bed and make for the ensuite, every step leaden.
At the sink, I twist the tap and splash cold water across my face, again and again, as if the shock alone might jolt me back into steadiness.
It doesn’t work.
My chest feels tighter. Each breath skims the surface of my lungs without ever filling them. My hands are trembling against the porcelain, slick with water, my reflection fractured in the droplets that run down the mirror.
Did I truly believe I was deserving of something so impossible?
Forgiveness. Her choosing me in spite of everything I’ve done to her.
My mind is laughing now, cruel and merciless.
No, it whispers, you had to invent it to survive.
A desperate mind clinging to fantasy, because the truth is too unbearable.
My throat constricts. I grip the sink harder, knuckles whitening, as if I could anchor myself by force alone. But the voice sharpens. It digs in.
You ruined everything.
You had her—you had all of her—and still you wanted more. You couldn’t be satisfied, could you? Every piece of herself she gave, you devoured. It was never enough. And now look at you. Empty-handed.
The room tilts around me. My heart hammers like it wants out of my chest. My lungs stutter, ragged and thin, no matter how wide I open my mouth. The mirror swims. Blue eyes stare back—hollowed and wild, too wide, too bright. A stranger’s face.
She was too good for you. Always too good. Did you really think she would stay?
The thought cleaves me in two. I gasp, a sound too sharp, too loud in the tiled silence. She’s gone. She’s gone and I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t exist without her.
She is the air you breathe, the voice sneers. And she is not here.
How long before you suffocate? How long before your body caves in on itself? Imagine it—the rest of your life without her. Never again to hear her voice. Never again to touch her skin. Never again to taste her lips.
I choke, bent over the sink. My chest feels caged, crushed inward. My vision darkens at the edges. I am convinced I’m going to die here—die of heartbreak, of the unbearable truth that I’ve lost her.
But then—through the din—another voice, faint but steady, cuts through the chaos. You must survive this, Nathaniel. You must. Because if you die here, you will never see her again.
You can’t die without a final look at her beautiful face.
At once, she comes to me. Her jade-green eyes—clear, luminous, impossible to mistake.
Her porcelain skin, delicate yet dusted with those faint freckles I’ve memorized like constellations.
And her hair, that fiery copper cascade that catches the light like flame.
The image sears me with reverence, equal parts agony and worship.
I cling to it, the thin filament of thought, and drag myself upright. My body moves without my consent, stumbling toward the shower. I twist the dial to its coldest setting and step in fully clothed, the icy torrent crashing down over me.
My breath seizes at the shock, but it steadies me. The water sluices through my hair, soaks my shirt, drips into my eyes until I can’t tell if I’m shivering or sobbing.
You have to survive this, I tell myself, teeth chattering, lungs burning. You have to see her again. She is your purpose, your reason for living. Without her, you are nothing.
The water beats down in punishing sheets, ice-cold and relentless.
My clothes cling heavy against me, fabric plastered to my skin, and still, I can’t breathe.
Each gasp feels jagged, shallow, as though my chest has caved in.
I clutch at my shirt, at the soaked cotton pulling tight against me, as if I could rip it free and make space for air.
But no matter how hard I drag at it, there isn’t enough space. There isn’t any air.
Why isn’t this working?
Why do I still feel like I’m dying?
My lungs won’t obey me. My throat closes with every attempt at a breath. My heart hammers against my ribs, too fast, too loud.
Panic attack. I recognize the sensation all too well—the suffocating, all-consuming certainty that death is minutes away.
It’s been over a year since the last one.
They used to come constantly after the avalanche, wave after wave until my body was an unliveable place.
My psychologist told me it was trauma made flesh, the nervous system refusing to forget.
They stopped after I started fixating on Olivia.
She was my reprieve, my balm, the reason I could trust the world again, even a little.
Of course they would return now that she’s gone.
I double over, sobs tearing loose, raw and broken. The water hides nothing; I can feel each tremor, each shudder wracking through me. Everything hurts—my chest, my throat, my head—and yet I feel hollow at the same time, like nothing inside me is real.
Since Alex died, I have been drifting, a husk moving through a life that no longer belonged to me. Until her. Until Olivia. She gave the days color again, gave the nights meaning. She made all of it matter. And now—without her—I can’t make sense of anything at all.
I crumple against the marble, hands braced on my knees, breath heaving and uneven. Water streams over my face, mingling with tears, and the thought claws through me: I can’t bear this. I can’t.
And then—through the roar in my ears, through the collapse of thought—her voice slices cleanly through.
“Nathaniel?”
I freeze.
My mind has already proven itself to be ruthless, conjuring illusions only to tear them away. This could be another. A phantom of longing, a trick of memory sharpened into torture.
Her voice calls again, panicked, urgent.
Through the haze, I see her form—blurred at first, then sharpening, impossibly vivid.
My chest lurches. I must be hallucinating.
But god—god, she’s beautiful. Even as a phantom, she’s the most exquisite thing I have ever seen.
Just the sight of her, real or imagined, cuts through the static and softens the terror clawing at me.