I'll Never Leave You

ONC 2026 Round 1 Ambassador's Pick and Winner ❤️
Round 2 Winner 🏆 ❤️

Prompt 46:

"We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than you."

People love to call it fate when two lives brush past each other in a crowded city, as if only the universe gets to play matchmaker.

But I know better.

I work in restoration, and I have an eye for broken things that need it. I spend my days saving delicate, ruined things from time, from careless hands, from rot. I know how to scrape away grime without damaging what's underneath. I know how to make the broken look holy again.

Then I see you.

Elias Thorne-quiet grey eyes, and an even quieter presence that tempts me to learn more about you.

You stand in front of blueprints like they're scripture, like you're trying to understand the soul of a building the way I try to understand the soul of a person. And something inside me clicks into place so perfectly it scares me.

That's when I knew. I finally found the missing, broken part of me. I finally found my soulmate.

I'm not here to pass through your story, Elias. I'm here to edit it. To erase what came before and peel away every ghost you still keep tucked behind your ribs-especially the one named Kathy.

And I've already started drawing the version of your life where there's only one name you remember.

Because love can fade. But attachment doesn't. And I'll prove it-I'll Never Leave You.