Page 81 of Declan

Her.

Lena.

Tomorrow, I fight.

Chapter 23

Lena

The second I walked out of that bathroom, I stopped breathing.

My heart is still in there, trapped somewhere between Declan’s silence and Wesley’s rage. My chest is tight, my lungs barely functioning, and I can’t feel anything except the blood pounding in my ears and the slow burn of humiliation crawling up my throat.

“This is nothing, Wesley. It’s absolutely nothing.”

That’s what I said.

That’s whathelet me say.

That’s whathechose to let hang in the air like a goddamn death sentence.

I gave him a moment. One chance to fight for me. To speak up. To step forward and say,She’s not nothing. She’s mine.

But he didn’t say a damn thing.

Not one fucking word.

He stood there like I was a mistake. A dirty secret he couldn’t scrub off fast enough.

It’s been hours since I left Wesley’s house, and I’m still driving. My face is sticky with tears, my vision blurry, my hands clenched so tightly on the wheel that my knuckles ache. I keep replaying it. Declan frozen, Wesley’s betrayal, the way the silence screamed louder than anything else.

I keep seeing his face.

I keep hearing nothing.

I'm so goddamn angry. At him. At myself. At how foolish I was to think this could work.

I’m done.

Just thinking it cracks something deep inside me. A sob rips through my chest, and I finally pull over, pressing my forehead to the steering wheel, letting myself break for real this time.

This was supposed to be real.

It felt real.

But right now, the betrayal overshadows everything else.

I don’t know what love is supposed to feel like. I’ve known the love of a brother, the loyalty of a best friend. But this? The way I loved Declan? That was different. It was whole. It was home.

And now I feel empty.

I should go to my apartment, but it doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It feels like a reminder of everything I thought I had. And everything I just lost. Still, I don’t have anywhere else to go.

Jeanne is going to ask questions I don’t have the strength to answer, but I need a place to fall apart. I need someone who gives a damn, even if I don’t want to talk.

When I walk through the door, Jeanne bolts up from the couch like I’ve risen from the dead.

“Lee! Oh my God, I almost forgot what you looked like,” she laughs, rushing to hug me. But the second her arms are around me, the sobs come crashing out of me like a dam breaking.

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