Stevie-lou's POV

The door slammed shut behind him like a final judgment.

I didn’t even try to stand. My knees gave out the moment he left, and I dropped to the cold floor like a puppet with its strings cut. The silence that followed his departure was the loudest thing I’d ever heard. It pressed into my ears, filled my lungs, strangled my throat.

I wept.

Ugly, broken sobs that shook my entire body. I curled into myself like I could disappear into the corner, into the cracks in the floor, into the guilt that burned so deeply I couldn’t breathe.

It was all my fault.

Every damn bit of...