Miracle's POV
A year. A full year.
The number didn't just hurt; it incinerated. It burned away the last fragile remnants of the woman I had been.
A year. It was half of the time I spent in his kitchen, learning to cook dishes I thought would make him happy.
Half of the hours I wasted watching cooking shows instead of attending lectures. Half of the time I spent folding his laundry, breathing in the scent of his lie. Half of the nights in his bed, feeling like a placeholder.
Half of my love, poured into a cracked and leaking vessel.
The math was simple, and the answer was my own stupidity.
A coldness washed over me, dousing the initial shock.
Tears fell down my cheek, I quickly wiped it off. You won't see me fall apart, asshole!
The pain in my heart was locked in a vault, to be examined when I was alone.
"Screw you," I said, my voice dropping from a scream to something low and lethal. I unclenched my fist, my body going still. "Screw you, Stevie."
He had the audacity to look relieved that the yelling was over.
"Didn't she get engaged a few months back?" The question was flat, analytical.
He shifted, the first sign of discomfort. "She stopped seeing me then."
The puzzle clicked into place with a sickening finality. Of course.
"Is that why you were so attentive?" Ice laced every word. "Is that why you planned that big weekend at the ranch last year? Are you telling me that my happiest month with you was just a rebound. From her. And I was your consolation prize."
He just stared. That infuriating, vacant stare that said I wasn't worth the breath of an explanation.
"I am Miracle Eloise fucking Cole!, I am no man's consolation prize!" I screamed in his face "Did you call her? Did you beg her to come back while you were on those 'long walks' at my anniversary spot?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation. No shame.
"You are a piece of shit."
"The deception was hard, but I'm not pretending anymore, Ira." He said it like he was announcing he'd quit a job he hated.
A slow, mirthless smile touched my lips.
"Oh, well then. Congratulations on your honesty. Should I throw you a party? Get a cake that says 'Congrats on No Longer Actively Deceiving the Woman Who Gave Up Everything For You'?"
He had the nerve to look annoyed. "This is what I mean. The dramatics. You are dramatic"
"Dramatics?" I took a step forward, my head throbbing in time with my rage. "How, Steve? Look me in the eye and explain the mechanics of it. How do you do this to another person? How do you lie with every kiss, every 'I love you,' for a year, and not feel your soul curdle?"
He shrugged.
That shrug. The ultimate dismissal. It was the punctuation mark on two years of my life.
It was all the answer I needed.
"Alright" I whispered, the cold in my veins solidifying into diamond-hard resolve.
"I fell in love with her, I didn't mean—"
"Oh shut up" I cut him off, my voice sharp enough to slice. "You were selfish. You wanted both. My love was convenient, but hers was exciting, wasn't it? Don't dress your cowardice up as fate."
I moved to walk out, my gait steady despite the dizziness. I refuse to stumble in front of him.
He grabbed my arm. "Ira, stop. You're hurt. You can't just leave."
"I said, let go of me." My voice was dangerously calm.
"You'll go back to the apartment. You always do. You'll cool off and we'll talk."
The assumption in his tone was the final spark. He was so sure of his power over me, so certain of my devotion.
He pulled me gently, a familiar gesture that had once been comforting. Now it felt like a brand. "You'll forgive me for this. You always do. You've forgiven worse."
And there it was.
His unshakable, monstrous belief in my infinite forgiveness. He saw my capacity for love not as a strength, but as a weakness to be exploited.
I went perfectly still. The tears dried up. The shaking stopped. I looked at our hands, his on my arm, and then I lifted my gaze to his.
"You're right," I said, my voice a hollow echo. "I always do, don't I?."
A smug relief flickered in his devil-blue eyes. He thought he'd won. He thought the storm had passed.
He started to pull me into a hug, a victory embrace. "See? It's going to be okay, sweet—"
That's when I moved.
I used the lessons I'd been forced to learn as a child, the ones I'd buried to seem more human for him, it surged to the surface. I didn't think. I just reacted.
I twisted my arm free with a sharp, brutal motion, breaking his grip. In the same second, my other hand came up, not in a slap, but in a stiff-palm strike, aiming not for his face, but for the side of his jaw, right below the ear.
It was fast. Precise. Devastating.
His eyes widened in shock an instant before the nerve cluster was hit. The smugness vanished, replaced by a blank, stunned confusion.
His knees buckled, and he crumpled to the filthy bathroom floor like a sack of stones, out cold before he even landed.
I stood over him, breathing heavily, the warmth of my blood the only thing that felt real.
"Never. Touch me. Again," I spat the words at his unconscious form.
I didn't look back.
I stumbled out of the bathroom, past the gawking stares, and into the cool night air.
The bus station. I needed to get to the bus station.
As my vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges, I did the only thing I could. I reached for a thread I had severed years ago, a connection buried deep in my mind. I poured every ounce of my will, my pain, and my fury into it.
It was a scream into the void, a desperate, final gamble. I called my twin brother.
(Xavier. Help me. Find me)
Then, the world went black.