CHAPTER 14

Olivia

I didn't expect him to show up today.

After the weekend, I had almost convinced myself that maybe I'd imagined everything. Maybe those moments in Luke's flat weren't as intense as they'd felt. Maybe his voice hadn't actually broken when he told me to leave.

But then, there he was—hallway shadows dancing across his face, sleeves rolled up, bruise still faint on his cheek like a reminder I couldn't unsee.

And worse?

He didn't look at me.

Not once.

I told myself I didn't care. That I didn't need him to. That I was stronger now.

"Liv!"

Carter. Again.

He caught up to me by the lockers, looking like he hadn't slept either. His hair was messy, not in that careless cool way people always liked, but like he'd run his hands through it too many times, pulling at strands like he was trying to yank the guilt right out of himself.

"Liv, just—wait a second."

I sighed. "Carter, I really can't do this."

He looked... wrecked. "I know. I just—I wanted to say I saw you walk out of that hallway Friday and—" He swallowed. "You looked broken."

I blinked. "Oh? And what exactly would you know about broken?"

"That's not fair."

"No, what's not fair is you only talk to me now that Emily's not looking," I snapped. "Or is she just conveniently busy again?"

His jaw tightened. "That's not what this is. I keep thinking about everything. You. Us. The way I left when you needed me."

"And still left," I said, softer this time. "You say you're sorry but nothing's different."

He stepped closer. "That's not true. I still care about you, Liv. I still see you—"

"Yeah?" I scoffed. "Then maybe you should've looked at me once in the past year. Maybe in the cafeteria. Maybe when Stacy and Brad called me names and everyone laughed, including you. Maybe when I worked next to you in the café and you acted like we were strangers."

He looked ashamed. "I was a coward."

"That's the first honest thing you've said."

His shoulders sank. "I didn't deserve your forgiveness then. I don't now. But I had to try."

I stared at him for a second, my throat tight. "I don't hate you, Carter. I just... can't carry your guilt too."

And then I walked away.

It wasn't even anger anymore. Just exhaustion.

From the corner of my eye, I caught the way Sebastian stood frozen near his locker. His jaw was clenched. His eyes were locked on Carter, then on me. And then... down. Like looking at me hurt.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I went to class, silent.

We hadn't spoken since the fight. Since I ran from Luke's flat like my heart was on fire. Maybe it still was.

Sebastian didn't talk to me the entire day. Not even a glance. Not a word. He passed me in the hallway once, and I could feel my lungs seize as if the space between us had become too heavy to breathe in.

It wasn't until history class, when Mrs. reminded us of the project, that the silence had to be broken.

"Ms. Price, Mr. Patterson," she said, her voice sharp. "You two are behind. I need an update."

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I've done the research," I murmured. "We can go over it after school."

I felt Sebastian look at me for the first time. "Fine," he said, his voice low and unreadable.

Sebastian Pov

She was talking to him again.

Carter-fucking-West. Her ex-boyfriend 

I saw him at her locker, saw the way he leaned in too close, said something that made Olivia freeze. She didn't smile. Didn't even look at him. But it didn't matter. The sight of them together lit something inside me—ugly, wild. and then she get away with carter to the fire exit.

Jealousy had a taste, bitter and metallic, and I hated how familiar it felt.

But what right did I have?

I'd told her to leave. I'd told her this was the real me—the one who pushed people away, the one who kept the bruises on the inside and out.

Why I was doing this. Why I was hurting her.

I avoided her all morning. But fate, as usual, had other plans.

We have to work on a damn history project—King Pedro and Inês de Castro. Tragedy, obsession, forbidden love. The irony was laughable.

Mrs Topsa reminded us so Olivia has asked me to meet in the library after school 

The school library smelled like old pages and rain. She was already sitting at the back, hair falling forward, fingers moving over a stack of printed pages and scribbled notes. She didn't look up when I sat across from her.

I took the silence like a punishment.

She finally spoke without lifting her head. "I've annotated the key parts from Inês's letters. And I pulled three secondary sources."

Her voice was sharp, efficient. All business.

"Okay," I said quietly. "Let's go through it."

She pushed a printout toward me, her nails tapping it once before pulling back. "This one's from a professor at the University of Lisbon. It talks about how Pedro's grief turned to rage—how love turned him into something darker."

There was something in her voice—an edge that wasn't academic.

I glanced down. The quote she underlined read:

"It is not the absence of love that ruins a man—but the silence that follows."

I swallowed hard.

She continued. "And this one... talks about the exhumation. How he crowned her corpse queen. How he made the court kiss her dead hand."

I looked at her then. Her eyes weren't on the paper. They were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere distant. Raw.

"That quote felt familiar?" she asked without looking at me.

I nodded slowly. "Too familiar."

She finally looked up. "Sometimes I wonder if grief ever leaves... or if we just learn to pretend we're not bleeding."

It hit like a punch to the ribs. Not because of the words. But because I knew she wasn't talking about Inês anymore.

"I'm sorry," I said, barely above a whisper.

She blinked at me, like she hadn't expected an apology. "For the project delay?"

"For everything."

She scoffed. "Doesn't matter now. We have work to do, right?"

But the room suddenly felt too quiet. Too full of everything we weren't saying.

I tried to read the next quote she'd marked, but the words blurred.

"Inês's silence was not consent. It was the only power left to a woman already buried."

Olivia didn't say anything.

Neither did I.

Eventually, she stood up, gathering her papers.

"We'll finalize the structure tomorrow. I've divided the timeline, and you can add your notes to the Pedro section. I'll take care of the conclusion."

I wanted to stop her. Say something real. Something that would make her stay.

But all I said was, "Olivia—"

She paused, just for a second, then turned without looking back.

And she left.

The silence she left behind roared louder than anything.

I watched her walk away.

She didn't look back—not once. Her bag was slung over her shoulder, her shoulders tense, her head held high. But I could still see it. The cracks she tried to hide. The invisible weight she carried. The way she blinked too fast after reading those damn quotes aloud, like they weren't just words from a centuries-old tragedy, but a mirror held to her own heart.

I stood there long after she vanished through the glass doors of the library, gripping the edge of the table like it might hold me together. But it didn't. Nothing did.

I left the library in a blur.

The hallway was a dull hum of lockers slamming and voices echoing. I didn't register any of it—not even Evelyn walking beside me, not until we reached her car.

We didn't speak. Not at first.

I slid into the passenger seat, letting the door close softly behind me. The engine turned over with a quiet purr. Evelyn's knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. Her hair was pulled up messily like it always was when she was anxious, and she kept staring at the road in front of her like she didn't quite know how to drive through it.

"She didn't even look at me," she said, finally.

I stared out the passenger window. My voice came out hollow. "I know."

"I walked up to her this morning," Evelyn said, a thread of disbelief in her voice. "She walked right past me. Like I didn't matter."

My chest ached. "Maybe we don't. Not to her. Not anymore."

She laughed bitterly. "Yeah. Maybe."

The car moved forward slowly, pulling out of the school parking lot.

I rested my elbow against the window, letting my fingers drift to my lips—the same ones I bit until they bled last night. I hadn't slept. I hadn't even changed my hoodie. And every time I closed my eyes, she was there.

Her voice reading those quotes. Her expression when she told me she'd done the research. Her quiet, forced calm.

That look on her face when she told me, "Some stories are always doomed. Some people just aren't meant to survive love."

I'd wanted to scream. Because she didn't even know she was talking about us. And maybe I didn't either—not completely. But it felt like she was tearing open something raw and sacred and broken between us without even realizing it.

"I remember her," Evelyn said beside me.

I turned to her, eyebrows knitting.

"She helped me once," she said, voice low. "You don't remember, but... it was years ago. One of your football matches against her school. I was in the stands, watching you. You were benched that day because of your wrist, remember?"

I nodded slowly, faint memory flickering.

"I had a panic attack," Evelyn continued. "In the bleachers. No one noticed. No one ever noticed. Except her. She was a cheerleader then. And somehow, in the middle of all that noise and glitter and yelling, she saw me."

I stared at my sister.

"She came over, sat beside me even though she didn't know me. Got me water. Talked to me about the dumbest stuff—like how itchy her uniform was and how she hated glitter. She made me laugh through my tears. And then the game ended, and she was gone."

My throat went dry.

"I never even got her name that day. But I never forgot her face."

She paused, eyes distant.

"So when I saw her again this year, sitting alone in that class... I knew. I knew it was her. And I promised myself I'd bring color to her life the way she once brought calm to mine."

My chest twisted. "You did."

"For a while," Evelyn agreed. "And then we vanished."

I don't say anything.

Because she doesn't know. Not about the boy who sat on the rusted swing at the edge of the park, too quiet for his age. The boy who hadn't spoken in weeks—not because he didn't want to, but because his voice had vanished the day his father's rage filled the house like smoke.

I remember how everything felt too loud after that. The world, the people, even the silence.

And then—her.

That girl.

She didn't ask me anything. Didn't push. She just sat beside me, kicking at the dirt with her sneakers, like we'd been friends forever. Like silence was something sacred, not awkward. Like I didn't need to say a single word to be understood, and she smiled looking at me.

She made space for me without even realizing it.

And I never forgot.

It was her. It's always been her.

But I never told Evelyn. I never told anyone. That memory... it's mine. Untouched. Precious. A moment no one else gets to claim. She was light before I even knew I needed it.

I dropped my head back against the seat. My voice was hoarse. "She doesn't even know who we are, Ev. And still... I've never felt more seen than when she looks at me."

Evelyn's grip on the wheel tightened again. "So why do you keep pushing her away?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Because I'm scared. Because I'm a coward. Because I'm already drowning and I don't want her to jump in after me."

She didn't answer that.

Outside the window, houses blurred past, and the sky had started to turn that lonely shade of gold that always made me feel twelve again—small and stuck and waiting for a night that never ended.

"I don't want to go home," I said quietly.

Evelyn's jaw twitched. "Me either."

It was strange, how the word home never felt like safety. Only a place with thin walls and sharp silences. A place where you held your breath and learned to survive between screams and slammed doors.

I looked over at my sister, saw the way her eyes glossed, and I suddenly hated myself more.

"I didn't just break her heart, did I?" I murmured. "I broke you too."

Evelyn turned to me, pain blooming in her eyes. "No, Seb. You didn't break me. Life did that long before. You... you tried to hold the pieces."

I wanted to believe her.

But all I could think of was Olivia's voice as she walked away—steady but empty. Like she'd finally run out of reasons to care.

I stared ahead again, eyes burning.

And in the quiet, with Evelyn beside me, the only thing I could feel was her absence.