Page 222 of The Bittersweet Bond

I’ll break up with her.

It felt like stabbing himself in the chest.

Bas

He has to go.

His fingers hovered over the send button. Just one tap. One goddamn tap. And it would all be over.

The voices around him were suddenly too loud. Too sharp. Every sound cut into his ears, like someone had turned up the background noise until it was screaming inside his skull.

A door creaked open, laughter—too shrill. Too real. The world felt just a fraction of a second away, just out of reach, while he stood here, phone in hand, destroying himself.

His heart pounded against his ribcage—wild, painful, restless. It wasn’t real yet. He could still change his mind. He could still ignore the emptiness in his chest, the black, sticky mass spreading inside him, reaching for him, threatening to swallow him whole.

It felt wrong.

But maybe that was the point. Maybe it had to feel wrong to be right.

His thumb pressed down.

Sent.

Bas inhaled slowly, holding the air in his lungs for a moment, as if trying to preserve the pain, before exhaling—along with everything he could have been.

There was no going back.

This is the only way.

He slid the phone back into his pocket. As if nothing had happened. As if nothing inside him had cracked. As if nothing inside him had gone dark.

But the emptiness was back.

It’s the right thing to do.

At that exact moment, Evin turned toward him, her eyes still glowing, her smile a soft shimmer in the darkness that was swallowing him whole. Her gaze sought his—warm, alive.

And Bas smiled back.

As if nothing had happened…

__________

Evin

Neon lights reflected in the window, the world outside moving on—but here, in this small bubble of greasy food, tired conversations, and the low hum of music trickling from the speakers, it felt like time had paused for just a moment.

Evin leaned back, her fingers absentmindedly playing with the paper sleeve of her straw. The taste of salt and ketchup still lingered on her tongue, but the hunger had finally subsided. Her muscles felt pleasantly heavy, the exhaustion from the performance melting into a quiet sense of satisfaction.

Milka sat across from her, talking nonstop about one of the dancers from the ensemble—something about his ridiculously long eyelashes and how she was sure he had been torturing her with lingering glances on purpose. Bellamy just smirked, shaking his head as he dipped a fry into his BBQ sauce.

Bas sat beside Evin, one hand loosely wrapped around his glass, his expression calm but not detached. He was listening, maybe more than he let on.

And then, the words just slipped out.

"I got an offer for a summer camp in London."

For a second, the words hung in the air as if they had lost their way, as if they were still searching for their place in this conversation.

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