slide away {lorenzo berkshire}

78. the great war

"It's never enough, is it? Time. We always think we have so much of it, but when it really counts, we don't have enough at all."
— T.J. Klune

~~~~~~~

Cassie Avery

We were herded through the corridors like a procession.

Not rushed. Not shouted at. Just guided forward in a steady, unbreaking stream, professors lining the edges, faces drawn tight with something they weren't saying out loud.

No one spoke.

Mattheo and I fell into step with the rest of the Slytherins just as the crowd slowed near the great hall. Torchlight flickered low along the walls, casting shadows that stretched too long, too thin. Everyone looked pale. Stripped back. Like all the colour had been stolen from the world.

Like we were already ghosts.

My thoughts were too loud. Too tangled. Every few seconds my mind dragged me back to the same moment, the same words, like a bruise I couldn't stop pressing. An hour ago. Maybe less.

I didn't look for Lorenzo at first.

I couldn't.

I'd spent the last hour convincing myself that this was the line - the one I'd finally crossed. That I'd hurt him badly enough this time that even he would stop coming back.

So I kept my eyes on the floor as the crowd pressed forward, my bare feet cold against the stone.

But I felt it.

Not a sound. Not a touch.

Just that familiar, devastating pull - the one that had always found him before my eyes did.

I looked up. And my breath left me all at once.

Lorenzo.

For one horrible second, I thought he wouldn't look at me. That he'd already decided not to.

Then his gaze lifted.

It hit like a physical thing.

Not anger. Not coldness.

Worry.

Raw and immediate, like it had never even occurred to him to stop caring.

Something tight snapped in my chest as he moved toward me, threading through the crowd with calm, deliberate steps, like his body had already decided what to do before his head could argue with it.

Up close, he looked exhausted. Like he'd been holding himself together by sheer force. His gaze swept over my face automatically, checking for injury, for cracks, for signs I might bolt again if he blinked.

Lorenzo stopped in front of me, the rest of the students surging around us like a river parting around a rock. He didn't touch me. Didn't say anything.

He just held my boots out.

"Figured you'd need these," he said softly.

That was it.

No 'why'. No 'we need to talk'. No 'what the hell was that'.

Just concern. Quiet. Automatic.

The realisation hit me like a blow.

He'd gone back.

After I ran. After I'd left him standing there crying with his hands still shaking and his heart split open on the floor. After I'd made it devastatingly clear I couldn't give him what he was asking for.

He'd still turned around. Still reached down. Still thought of me standing barefoot somewhere in the chaos and decided that mattered.

I stared at the shoes for a second too long, because if I looked at his face properly, I didn't trust myself not to unravel. My chest ached, sharp and sudden.