Every Girl Wants A Moon

Chapter 32: Sophia

Sophia (before the accident)

Leaving the office, everything felt wrong. The air, the way the city lights flickered against the wet pavement, the way my own footsteps echoed like they didn't belong to me. The weight in my chest was suffocating, pressing down harder with every step.

Chase had never snapped at me before. Never.

The moment replayed in my mind like a cruel, looping record. His sharp tone, the way his eyes darkened with frustration, the short, clipped words that cut through me like a blade. It wasn't even the words themselves, but the way they felt—like I was a problem. A burden.

I had never seen him like that. Never felt him push me away like that.

And the worst part? I couldn't blame him. Because maybe I was too much. Maybe I was exhausting. Maybe I was the one who kept ruining things, over and over again.

A mistake.

I wrapped my arms around myself as I stepped into the cab, blinking rapidly against the burn in my eyes. I shouldn't cry. Not over this. Not when he was stressed and overwhelmed. Not when it was just one moment, just one bad conversation. But my hands still trembled as I set them in my lap, my fingers curling into fists as if that would stop the ache in my chest.

It never stopped, though.

I knew that feeling too well—the quiet certainty that I was always one step away from losing the people I loved.

Because I did.

Every time.

My parents. My home.

And now Chase?

A breath shuddered out of me as I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the city blur past. The streetlights glowed in soft halos, distorted by the unshed tears clinging to my lashes. The sky was a deep, endless navy, dotted with stars—but my gaze sought only one thing.

The moon.

Constant. Unchanging. Always there, even when the night was the darkest.

My parents had taught me that. No matter where I was, no matter how lost I felt, I could always look up and find it.

But when they were gone, even the moon hadn't felt like enough.

I had been small, curled up in the cold, staring at the sky with silent desperation. I had whispered to it, pleaded with it. Asked for something—anything—to hold on to.

And that night at the beach, when loneliness had wrapped around me like an endless tide, I had wished for a moon of my own.

Something to light my way. Something that wouldn't leave.

I had thought Chase was that.

He had felt like home in a way no place ever had. Safe. Warm. A constant in the way nothing else in my life had ever been.

But tonight, I wasn't so sure.

Tonight, it felt like maybe I had been wrong. Maybe I had read it all wrong. Maybe I had been foolish to think I could have something that didn't slip through my fingers.

Maybe I had lost him already.

The ache in my chest sharpened, and I pressed my knuckles to my lips, willing myself to breathe.

The cab turned onto another street, headlights flashing in the distance, the city's rhythm pulsing steadily around me. The driver murmured something under his breath, but I barely registered it. My mind was too full of static, too lost in the weight of my own thoughts.