Page 165 of Mason

Quiet. Heavy. The kind that sits in your bones and never really leaves.

His arms hang loose at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them—like they were made to hold me, and now they’re useless.

He doesn’t ask me to stay.

And that’s what breaks me.

Not the silence.

Not the weight of my bag in my hand.

Not even the echo of my own heartbeat pounding like a warning.

It’shim.

Just standing there.

Letting me go.

Like he already knows I’ve made up my mind.

Like he’s learned the hard way not to hold onto things that want to run.

My chest cracks.

Splinters.

Bleeds.

But I take a step forward anyway.

And he doesn’t move.

Doesn’t stop me.

Doesn’t beg.

Because he knows—God, heknows—that the kind of broken I feel can’t be healed by staying.

And I?

I don’t look back.

But I feel him.

Every step I take away from him feels like ripping my own skin off.

And still—I walk.

Because I’m scared.

Because I’m drowning.

Because I don’t know who I am anymore.

But as I disappear up the path, away from him, the last thing burned into the back of my mind is his face.

That look in his eyes.

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