By the time we pull up to my building, exhaustion drapes over me like a weighted blanket. Violet grabs a couple of my bags without waiting for me to argue and walks me to the door. She sets them down inside, giving the place a quick glance like she’s checking that it’s still standing.

“I’m not gonna hover,” she says, pulling me into a hug and squeezing tighter than usual. “You’re wiped. You need sleep, not me breathing down your neck. Text me if you need anything.”

I nod, forcing a small smile. “I will.”

But as soon as I step inside, the facade cracks.

The door clicks shut behind me, sealing me inside the quiet stillness of my apartment. It’s exactly the way I left it—neatly arranged furniture, the stale scent of the old building clinging to the air.

I cross the room and strike a match, lighting the vanilla candle I always keep on the coffee table. Watching the flame flicker to life feels like staking a small claim—like reminding this place that I’m back.

But I’m not the same.

I’m different.

My suitcase sits by the door, a tangible reminder that I was somewhere else not so long ago. That I was with him. Wrapped up in his arms, in his life, in a world that now seems impossibly far away.

I kick out of my shoes, making my way deeper inside, but the space is almost foreign. Like I don’t quite belong here anymore.

Because a piece of my heart remains in Sydney.

Part of me is his.

I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing, my thoughts tangled in all the ways I’ve changed since the last time I was in this room. How I used to think I had everything figured out. How I once believed that love was something I could choose to walk away from if I had to.

But I was wrong.

I love Alex Sebring. Endlessly.

He’s still in every breath I take, and I don’t think that will ever change.

Chapter 2

Alex Sebring

The house feels hollow without her. Too still. Too quiet. Three months of waking up to her beside me, of her laughter echoing through these rooms, of her presence filling every space. And now there’s just silence. Just absence. Just me.

I went through the motions today—woke up, showered, made coffee. But everything felt off. The sheets still smell like her, but she’s not here to tangle herself up in them. Her coffee mug sits beside mine in the cabinet, but she’s not here to fill it. My playlist shuffles to the songs she loves, and instead of catching her singing under her breath in my kitchen, I just stand there, staring at the space where she should be.