The One I Shouldn't Love

Easter~

Three Days Ago.

The morning had started cold.

Not in weather—but in soul. Jacob had left with Natalie just after sunrise, and even though he said they wouldn't be gone long, I felt it, deep in my chest: that lonely ache of absence.

It was silly. I barely knew him.

I wasn't supposed to miss him.

But I did.

The feeling was like a dull ache settled in my chest, like someone had taken a warm blanket away on a freezing morning. I told myself I had no right to feel anything—Jacob wasn't mine. He never was. But still, the silence that followed their departure was loud.

I went outside their impossibly beautiful home and sat on the porch steps with my arms wrapped around my knees and tried to swallow the odd twist of emptiness curling in my stomach.