It guts me. The broken way she says my name feels like she’s handing me her heart all over again. And I’m too weak to even hold it properly.

I can’t breathe.

I claw my hands through my hair, inhaling like I’ve been underwater too long. “There are things you don’t know about me. I understand it makes no sense right now. But I swear to you—I will come back.”

I choke on the next breath. “I just need a second to fucking breathe.”

She blinks, a tear sliding down her cheek, her body trembling like she’s barely holding herself together. “Alex⁠—”

I can’t stay. If I stay, I’ll shatter.

I turn toward the door, my feet heavy, my lungs burning.

“Alex… where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“When are you coming back?”

A beat of silence that feels like a lifetime.

“I don’t know.”

I open the door and step through it.

The moment it clicks shut behind me, I sag against the wall outside, bracing myself with one hand, my forehead resting against the cool surface.

My chest heaves with the force of it all—the anger, the heartbreak, the love.

Always the love.

Even now, when everything feels like it’s ripping apart, that part never wavers.

I just need a minute to breathe.

A minute to catch my breath and be strong enough to go back in there—to her.

Because walking away from Magnolia Steel has never been an option.

Not then.

Not now.

Not ever.

Chapter 26

Magnolia Steel

The silence is suffocating.

I stand frozen in the middle of my apartment, staring at the door Alex walked out of. The sound of it closing behind him echoes through my bones. My chest is hollow, scraped clean, as if he took everything vital with him.

A shuddering breath pushes past my lips, and I press my fingers to my temples, trying to make sense of everything that happened. But there is no making sense of it.

Alex was here. And now he’s gone.

I had to tell him about Ty. Hiding it would have been worse. But now I wonder if the truth broke us as surely as a lie would have.

A wave of nausea rolls through me, my stomach twisting as I replay the way Alex looked at me—the storm in his eyes, the tension coiled tight in his jaw. I saw the moment it hit him, and my words settled deep into his bones.

He left. And I don’t know if he’s ever coming back.

I try to pull myself together, but it’s useless. My hands are shaking. My heart is still racing.

Anger pulses in my veins, thick and wild.

Ty––that fucking bastard.

He poisoned me against Alex, feeding me lies until rejection became the only thing I could feel. He made me believe Alex had moved on with someone else.