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EPILOGUE. Violet's POV
I wonder every night if she'll walk through those doors.
I imagine the familiar creak of the hinges. The soft scuff of her boots across the floor, the way her voice would bounce off those hollow walls, dragging some ridiculous story behind it. Some reckless adventure, some chaos barely escaped. That was always her. A storm and a spark, wild, burning, and alive.
But the doors stayed closed.
Always.
And with every gust of wind rattling the windows, every distant echo in these empty halls, my heart skips, just once. Just enough to believe.
To hope.
They tell me not to take it so hard. That grief comes in waves, that I should let go, move forward, carry her with me. But how can I not take it hard? How do I not blame myself when I still see her smile in my dreams, and wake up to silence? What if I had been faster? What if I had said something, anything, when it mattered?
What if it could have been different?
What would I have said in that final moment?
What could I have said to make her understand everything she was to me?
I didn't have time.
There's never enough time—not in this life. Not enough words in the world to hold what she meant to me. Nothing strong enough, deep enough, or real enough to explain how fiercely I loved her. How deeply I still do.
All I know is that if I could go back, just for a second, I would have said the only thing that truly mattered, You were my beginning, my center, and my end.
And it ended with her.
She wasn't just someone I loved. She was my person. My balance in the storm. My second breath when I couldn't find the first.
And now the silence is louder than ever.
Some nights, I sit by the window long after the city's gone to sleep. I wait. I listen. And when the wind shifts just right, I close my eyes and pretend I hear her laugh. That sharp, reckless laugh that meant trouble was close behind.
Sometimes, I whisper her name just to remind the world she existed.
Just to remind myself.
Maybe this pain never fades. Maybe it just folds itself into the corners of your life, quiet and sharp. But if that's the price of having known her, truly known her, then I'll carry it, every day.
Because she mattered.
Because she saved me in more ways than she ever knew.
