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.

meant to wound you so deeply that you’d never be the

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

light, almost gentle. “I will never forgive

beat down on us, but he looked frozen.

curled into something almost pitiful. “Celeste,” he whispered, “but I

quiet, carried away by

away from him, capturing the smiles of strangers–the joy

a bench, his face buried in his hands. The only one who didn’t

take a picture for us?” A small, excited voice tugged at my sleeve.

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Years of Love, Seven Minutes

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Chapter 13

while his sister giggled beside him, reaching up to

smile broke across my lips for the first time in a

said,

shutter clicked, freezing their innocence in time. And just for a moment, I thought of another day,

ago.

had woven a tiny grass bracelet and slipped it onto my

always protect you, Celeste. I won’t let

had been no lies in his eyes—only

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