Chapter 13

The air was filled with the soft cooing of pigeons, their wings fluttering against the bright blue sky. Children’s laughter rang through the square, pure and unburdened, a stark contrast to the silence stretching between us.

For a long time, I didn’t speak. Then, finally, I turned to Atlas.

“You don’t deserve to stay by my side, Atlas,” 1 said. “Nothing you have belongs to me. It belongs to Ivy. Wasn’t that what you intended all along?”

His face stiffened, but I didn’t stop.

“I’ve spent years living in the illusion you created, believing every lie you fed me,” I continued, my words as steady as my heartbeat. “Do you have any idea how much I hated myself when I finally saw the truth?”

His fingers twitched slightly, his entire body unmoving.

I let out a slow breath, my expression unreadable. “I hated myself for loving you.”

I let the words sink in, let them twist through the air like a blade cutting deep. “I hated myself for loving the man who destroyed everything I had.”

Atlas flinched, barely perceptible, but I caught it.

And just like that, the last remnants of anger drained from my body. I looked at the face I had known for twenty years. The man who had shared my bed for five.

And suddenly–there was no more hatred left in me.

to wound you so deeply

my feet, gazing down at him. A soft, detached smile curved my lips,

my voice light, almost gentle. “I will never forgive

sun beat down on us, but

watched as his lips parted slightly, then curled into something almost pitiful. “Celeste,” he whispered, “but

quiet, carried away by the wind before it ever reached

my camera, turning away from him, capturing the smiles of strangers–the joy of

frame, there was only one figure hunched over on a bench, his face buried in his hands. The only one who

you take a picture for us?” A small, excited

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Love, Seven

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Chapter 13

no older than five, clutching, a flower crown while his sister giggled beside him, reaching up to place it on his

lips for the

I said,

And just for a moment, I

ago.

Atlas had woven a tiny grass bracelet and slipped it onto my wrist, his

always protect you, Celeste. I won’t let

there had been no lies in

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