What did Mother look like again? It’s on the tip of my consciousness, begging to come out.

I clench my fists. I can lock away my feelings. I can do better this time. I know I can. I can fake it until it becomes reality like Y’shennria taught me. I have to. I have to fight back against the whirlpool pull of Lucien’s face, his voice, and his scent, or I’ll ruin everything and let my heart slip through my grasp yet again.

I have to move on. I can’t cling. I can’t be deluded by some warm, comforting, hazy idea of love anymore. I have to force myself, with every aching breath, to forget my feelings for him. If that means ignoring them, if that means finding another girl to anchor him upon…

If that means forcing us apart at the seams so that we can never be together by any stretch of the imagination, then so be it.

It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than deceiving him. Harder than leaving Crav and Peligli. Harder than dying for the first time all over again. Even now, I can feel my own seams screaming to be put back in place.

But I will get my heart back. I will get Mother and Father and my humanity back.

Even if it means I have to tear myself apart.

My hand trembles as I extend it out the window, the kerchief clutched in it. Just a raise of my fingers, and it would slip away on the wind, lost to the cobblestones, the piles of horseshit, the dark corners of dark alleys or the dark pockets of some passerby. If I just drop it, I’ll be free.

But my fingers won’t move. I envision them opening, but the bones stay locked, cold and numb as I stare at them. I can’t. But I have to. I can’t. But I have to.

“Miss?”

I startle at the voice, looking up to see the carriage driver standing just in front of my extended arm, his eyes concerned. “We’ve arrived.”

Indeed, the bustle of South Gate echoes all around us, people staring at the girl with her arm straight out of her carriage. I curl my hand in, tucking the kerchief securely into my tunic. “W-Would you look at that. In record time. Thank you, good sir.”