OLIVIA POV
He said he loved me.
He said he always had and always would.
The words still echoed in my head like a drum I couldn’t stop hearing. Over and over, relentless, cruel, beautiful.
He loved me.
I should have felt something—something bright, healing, good—but all I felt was pain. A heavy, suffocating pain pressing against my ribs, filling my throat until I could barely breathe.
I kept staring at him long after he’d said it, trying to find the lie in his eyes. The smirk I used to hate, the arrogance I could point to and say *see? that’s the Albert I know.*
But it wasn’t there.
He looked so raw. So open. His gaze didn’t have the sharp edge I remembered. It was soft, unguarded, filled with something that made my chest ache.
And I hated that part of me—the part that wanted to b
