“Not a big deal? She’s out there crying because of you, and she was screaming my name like it’s my fault.”

“She’s gone,” I repeated, not meeting her gaze. “It’s over.”

“Blake, what did you do? What did you say to her?”

“It’s not what I did,” I strangled out. “It’s what I couldn’t do.”

I made the mistake of looking at her then. The second our eyes met, something cracked open inside my chest.

We stared at each other, the silence between us somehow louder than anything Sydney had just screamed.

“I’m tired,” I sighed. “Just drop it, Beverly.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I laughed dryly. “Well, it’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Blake,” she said softly. “Just tell me what happened.”

I swallowed hard, the weight of everything crashing down on me at once. “I told her the truth. Or at least, I tried to.”

“And what truth is that?”

That I feel like I’m drowning.

That my heart aches in a way that has become too familiar.

That your presence feels like both salvation and destruction.

But I didn’t say any of that.

Instead, I let the words fall from my lips before I lost my nerve. “That I never loved her. Because I was too busy loving you.”

Beverly’s eyes softened, but there was something else there, too—something that looked a lot like pain.

For a moment, I thought she might say something.

For a moment, I thought she might stay.

But instead, she turned.

And then she was gone.

BEVERLY

I grew up in a quiet neighborhood, the kind where people nodded in passing and Mrs. Martínez would leave baskets of homemade muffins on front porches. Our house wasn’t fancy by any means, but it was ours—a place where love was louder than money, where care was measured not in material things but in time and attention. My parents were good people—respected, known, and trusted. I felt it in every packed lunch my mother made, in every bedtime story my father read, even when his eyes were heavy with exhaustion, and in the way they held me when I scraped my knee. I was spoiled. Not with trips to Disney World or endless piles of toys, but with love. With the certainty that I would never face the world alone.

My father made sure of that.

He wasn’t just a dad; he was a protector. Not just of me, but of our entire town. A real-life superhero, I called him, though he never wore a cape. He wore a badge instead, a symbol of duty and justice. It gleamed on his chest every time he walked out the door, and I remember staring at it, mesmerized.