Don't save me.

Sometimes we're not even fully aware of how similar hate and love really are-how closely they sit together, how thin the line is between them. One wrong word, one wrong choice, one moment of fear or anger, and you cross it without even realizing you've done so.

That's how it had always been with Casey Miller and Olivia Lordan.

They didn't hate each other for no reason. There were reasons-plenty of them. Old wounds that never healed right, memories that calcified instead of fading, words spoken too young and carried for too long. Hurt layered on top of hurt until it became impossible to tell where it had started.

But were those reasons valid enough? That was the question no one ever asked out loud.

Because validity is subjective. Pain doesn't measure itself against intent. Trauma doesn't care how old you were, or what you meant to do. It just exists, heavy and unrelenting, shaping you whether you want it to or not.

Everyone has flaws. Everyone has demons they fight in private. Some people turn inward and rot quietly. Some people explode. Some people run. Some people stay and harden. None of it is clean. None of it is fair.

And maybe that was the cruelest part for them.

Not the hate.
Not the anger.
Not even the silence.

But the fact that, once upon a time, it had been love-or something dangerously close to it-and that was what made everything else hurt so much more.