The city lights blurred through her tears. Neon signs reflected on the black water below, each ripple reminding her how fragile she had become.
Celeste stood on the edge of the bridge, her fingers gripping the cold rail. The wind stung her cheeks, but it wasn't as sharp as the pain hollowing her chest.
Just hours before, her face had been plastered all over the headlines again. SCANDAL QUEEN. STARLET FALLEN. BETRAYED BY HER OWN LOVER.
Elias's picture was beside hers. He looked perfect, untouchable, his smile soft as always. But in his eyes — she saw it now — there had never been love. Only calculation. He had risen while she fell. And she had let him.
Her phone buzzed with notifications she couldn't bear to read. The comments, the hatred, the laughter at her misery. All of it pressed against her lungs like a weight she couldn't breathe through.
She thought of calling someone. But who? She had no one.
Her parents were strangers, her friends gone, her fans turned into wolves.
And then — faintly, somewhere deep inside her — she remembered warmth. Arms around her. A voice whispering, Never, I'll never leave you.
It wasn't from this life. She didn't even know whose memory it was. But it made her cry harder, because whoever it was, they weren't here now.
She climbed the rail. Her heels clattered against the steel. The night air rushed around her, pulling her hair into a wild, broken halo.
Her chest rose once, sharply.
"I can't…" Her voice broke, lost to the roar of cars below. "I can't do this anymore."
And then she let go.
The world tilted. The city lights spun. For one suspended moment, she thought of the man she loved — the man who destroyed her. And of the faceless warmth of the brother she never remembered in this life.
The cold swallowed her whole.
Darkness.