Page 231 of Sage Haven
And sometimes… it’s both.
A chain reaction spiraling out of control, gathering momentum until it crashes into you, and you’re left breathless in the aftermath. Staring at the wreckage. Holding out your hands like maybe, just maybe, you can piece it back together.
But you can’t.
You can only stand there, hollow and shaking, as the dust settles around you.
And when it does—you don’t just see the destruction.
You feel it. You feel it in every crack that splinteredyour foundation.
Every tremor of betrayal that knocked you off balance. Every whisper of regret that seeps into your bones and makes a home there, as if it had always belonged.
You can’t scream it away. You can’t cry it out. You just live with it.
Every second. Every breath. Until you forget what it was like to exist without it.
But life is made up of those choices. And choices are never clean.
Each one takes you down a different road but none of which lead to peace.
Some are lined with fire. Some are carved from silence. But all of them come with their own form of suffering.
And when it’s time to choose…
The only question left is—What’s worth the pain?
That’s what Reich once told me during one of our many long-winded conversations.
“In the end, it’s not about avoiding pain. It’s about choosing the kind you can live with.”
I never really understood what he meant. Not until the day he left.
I remember it—clearer than anything else. The day I shattered.
I’ve tried to recall other things since then.
The warmth of his hand in mine. The sound of his voice, low and certain, whispering promises into my hair as we lay tangled in the dark. The way he smiled when he thought I wasn’t looking.
But those memories were faded now.
As if my mind is trying to protect me from remembering too much.
As if it’s easier to hold on to the ruin than to what was beautiful before it broke.
But that day? The day I lost him?
It’s carved into me like a scar I trace with trembling fingers, over and over, hoping one day it’ll stop hurting.
It never does.
I had only stepped out for a moment. Just long enough to grab a few things from my apartment. Just a moment.
I told myself he’d still be there when I got back. That he’d be waiting. That we still had time.
I was wrong.
When I returned, the life we were going to build—the fragile little world we’d created from ash and ruin—was gone.
