Every Last Breath

Elijah has been dead.

Not in the flowers and the coffin kind of way that signifies a funeral, but in the way someone can die while still breathing. His eyes hold ghosts of the past, memories that haunt him, echoes trapped within the walls of his mind.

They say he is cursed.
They say he is trouble, the boy who caused a scandal, who shattered lives.
But I see something they don't.
I see the cracks beneath his anger, the pain hidden in his silences. I see the boy fighting to breathe in a world that has already buried him.

I shouldn't care. He's a mess, tangled in guilt and regret, a storm waiting to destroy anything in its path. But when our worlds collide, I can't look away. I never planned on unraveling his secrets, yet here I am. His pain becomes mine. His ghosts become mine.

And despite the warnings and the rumors, I want to know him-truly know him. To understand the boy behind the mask, the one who hides behind anger and silence. But love is dangerous in a town that never forgets.

And I'm terrified to fall.
Because if I do, I might just fall with him.
And I'm not sure either of us can ever be saved.