KAEL
She walked away.
Again.
And I just... stood there.
My chest felt like it was caving in on itself, ribs folding inward, lungs refusing to fill.
Every breath scraped against something sharp lodged somewhere between my throat and my heart.
I couldn't move.
Couldn't think.
The world was spinning around me, faces turning, whispers multiplying, the weight of whispers pressing into my skin like needles. But none of it registered. Not really.
All I saw was her.
Aria.
Walking away from me.
The emerald dress that had made my heart stop just hours ago now disappeared through the crowd, swallowed by bodies and distance and the widening chasm between us.
I wanted to follow her.
God, I wanted to run after her, grab her, force her to listen, to believe me, to see that this wasn't what it looked like, that Sarah had orchestrated this, that I'd been set up, that I would never, never choose to hurt her like this.
But my legs wouldn't move.
