Ava's Pov
I didn't move after the call ended.
I just sat there, phone still in my hand, staring at nothing in particular.
Even though Leon's distress call made me worried for a bit, It had been fine.
Not perfect, but fine. Our lives were actually becoming stable enough that I stopped waiting for something to go wrong.
Then it did.
I unlocked my phone again and opened the picture. I shouldn't have, but I did.
It looked worse the second time.
I locked my phone again and placed it beside me. I tried to tell myself it didn't mean anything, that maybe it was just bad timing, bad angles, bad assumptions— because I trusted him, and I knew he'd never hurt me. But this just wasn't the time.
And the excuses weren't what sat in my chest. What sat there was the fact that I had to convince myself of that in the first place.
My throat tightened before I even realized I was crying.
