Page 236 of Fractured Devotion
I was never meant to keep her.
But we don’t have to carry each other like burdens anymore.
We can just let the love exist.
Uncomplicated and unbroken.
I slip my hands into my pockets and keep walking, the night stretching ahead, no longer feeling like an exile.
For the first time in my life, I feel something like freedom.
And it doesn’t terrify me.
Not anymore.
I stop by a vendor on the edge of the market and buy a small, worn notebook and a cheap pen.
It feels right to start something new.
In a nearby square, I sit down on a worn bench, the stone cool beneath me.
I open the notebook and let the pen glide across the page.
No names.
No targets.
No blood.
Just the beginning of something different.
I write about the city.
About the way the air smells at night.
About freedom.
About peace.
And somewhere between the lines, I write about her.
Not as a ghost.
Not as regret.
But as something beautiful that existed exactly as it needed to.
I close the notebook after the first page, tucking it into my coat.
This city isn’t mine.
But maybe, just maybe, I can let it become home.
The night stretches ahead, full of possibility.
And for the first time, I feel like I’m walking toward something instead of away.
I stand, hands in my pockets, the weight of the notebook warm against my chest.
