Chapter 21 - 22
Calhoun’s POV~
They finally turned the lights out on me.
The barista’s “Sir, we’re closing” was polite, the kind of politeness you give someone who’s been broken in public. I didn’t argue. I let the door close behind me and the city chewed me up.
Streets I’d walked a thousand times felt new and hostile and harsh and senseless to me. Every step was a replay of how I’d been a coward, how Carmela had waltzed back into my life and I’d folded like a cheap suit. The what ifs came at me in several waves: if she’d never shown up, if I’d named Elodie a week earlier, if, just once, I’d chosen the hard thing when it mattered. The questions didn’t fix anything. They only sharpened the ache in my chest.
The sky tore open. Thunder rattled my bones and the rain came down like it wanted to wash the city clean of me. People scattered for shelter. I walked into the storm because nowhere else felt like shelter anymore.
I said her name until it meant nothing and everything at once. Elodie, Elodie, Elodie... my tongue was like a rosary for a prayer I’d never said when it counted. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I clutched it like a lifeline. Mila’s message lit up the screen.
‘It’s over. Come home.’
Those words folded me inward. I didn’t have a clean way to breathe around them. I dropped to my knees on the slick sidewalk, rain slapping my face, and let myself break. My sobs were small and useless against the storm. The city moved around me while I sat there and emptied out.
I don’t remember how I ended up at her building. The apartment block loomed like some impossible idea I used to inhabit. Standing there felt obscene, like a thief caught outside the place he used to call refuge. I didn’t have the courage to knock. So I curled up on the cold steps and let the doorway be like a thin shield. Being close to her home was the smallest mercy I could steal.
I hadn’t slept properly for days. My clothes were sodden, my teeth chattering in a way that felt permanent. The cold slid into me slowly. Somewhere between numbness and sleep, I dreamed of the life I’d ruined.