Chapter 60
Calla
I’ve been staying in a hotel across town for the last few days.
It was only supposed to be one night—a backup plan in case I couldn’t handle seeing Haiyden. A place to break. To breathe. To figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next.
But I keep extending the stay.
There’s a part of me that’s paralyzed.
Because I’m not sure what going back might mean. What it might ask of me. What might fall apart if I try again and still can’t hold it together.
My suitcase still sits by the bed, untouched. Like I’m waiting for someone else to make the decision for me.
Every time I think about walking through that door again—really showing up—it feels like stepping toward a cliff. Like one step in the wrong direction might send me falling, spinning all over again.
It’s like I’m stuck between two lives: the one I walked away from, and the one I want—but don’t know how to belong to.
The room is quiet. I sit on the edge of the bed, staring out at the stretch of dull grey sky, loneliness clinging to me like a second skin.
After a moment, I get up and smooth the sheets until the creases disappear—pretending I can do the same with my own life. But it doesn’t change anything.
I feel the distance everywhere.
And then the memories come—painful and sudden, flashing behind my eyes.
The first morning he took care of me, the smell of burnt toast filling the kitchen. His voice low and soft as he set a plate in front of me anyway.
The way his hands guided mine, patient and steady, teaching me how to fold paper into something beautiful. Fingers brushing against mine like it meant something more.
The nights he carried me to bed when I was too tired to move. Tucked me in. Brushed my hair back. Kissed my forehead like I was something precious.
The mornings he woke me up with teasing touches and laughter, insisting I hadn’t smiled enough the night before.
The way he always made sure I was warm. Safe.
Every one of them is a tether.
And no matter how far I go, they keep pulling me back to him.
But they don’t erase everything. The pain. The uncertainty. The grief and guilt tangled up with the love.
The warmth of what we had… and the fear of what we became.
Sometimes I wonder if love is supposed to feel like this—heavy and complicated and impossible to ignore.
Then again, maybe I never really learned what love is supposed to feel like at all .
I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I was too much. Too sensitive. Too complicated to love.
But Haiyden never made me feel that way. He always made me feel like enough. Exactly as I am.
It doesn’t make this easy… but maybe love was never meant to be easy.
Maybe it’s about choosing someone in spite of the hard parts. Maybe even because of them.
My thoughts spin in circles, but the longer I sit with them, the clearer something becomes:
I’m not the same person I was before him.
I used to think something in me needed fixing. That I was too broken to be anything whole.
But Haiyden never tried to fix me. He just saw me. And somehow, that was enough.
Love was never going to be the butterfly—light and effortless. It’s the chrysalis. Tight. Painful. Quiet. The part no one talks about.
But maybe that’s where the change happens. Where something new begins to grow.
He hurt me. But he also met me in all the places I didn’t know still needed care. And maybe that’s what love is—not the absence of pain, but the willingness to stay through the healing.
I forgive him.
Not because he asked me to—but because our pain doesn’t have to be the thing that defines us.
And I forgive myself, too.
For needing space to understand my own heart. For taking time to learn who I was without him, so I could choose him for the right reasons.
I move to the nightstand and pick up the small, crumpled butterfly.
The paper’s worn soft at the edges, creased from how many times I’ve unfolded it and refolded it, trying to make sense of what it meant.
Now, I think I understand.
It wasn’t a promise.
It was a hope.
A belief that something delicate can survive the storm.
I realize it then: choosing him doesn’t mean losing myself. That’s what he’s given me—the space to be whole beside him, not because of him.
I can’t change his past. But I can choose him anyway.
And for the first time, that choice doesn’t scare me.
I grab my suitcase and zip it shut.
Slip the butterfly into my pocket—right where his hand used to rest when we walked side by side.
Then I step outside and breathe in the cool summer air.
The world keeps moving—just like it did without me. Just like it always will. But this time, I’m ready to move with it.
I love him.
And I’m done pretending I don’t.
I don’t know what comes next.
But this time, I’ll be brave enough to find out.