6
Raina.
I didn’t mean to tell him. The words had been sitting in my throat for weeks. Maybe longer. It was the kind of weight you learn to carry so quietly it feels like it belongs there. But when I sat on Dominic’s couch, knees pulled up to my chest, one of his throw blankets tangled around my waist, the silence just… cracked.
He didn’t push, didn’t ask me why I looked tired even after eight hours of sleep. Why I’d barely touched the tea he made. Why my fingers kept pulling at the hem of my shirt like I was trying to make myself smaller.
I hated that I still did that.
That even now, long after the engagement had shattered, long after Caleb had packed his things and left like I was some phase he’d outgrown, I still had the echo of his voice in my head.
“You don’t need to get so em
