---
I used to think that "I'm sorry" was the key.
The magical phrase that would turn back time, undo betrayal, make broken things whole again. But that was before life taught me the truth—some apologies are just exit wounds.
Luca's voice note was eleven seconds long.
I knew because I replayed it eleven times.
> "Amaya… I'm sorry."
His voice cracked on my name.
The way it used to when he said it in the dark, fingers brushing down my spine like he was afraid I'd disappear if he held me too tightly. The way he whispered it into my neck after gigs, when the music had drained him and I was the only quiet left in his storm.
But now?
Now it was just a ghost sitting in my inbox.
---
I didn't reply to Isla's email. Not yet. What would I say?
"Thank you for handing me a knife made of memory"?
Instead, I walked.
Out of my flat. Into the cold. Into the kind of wind that scraped your skin clean.
Zayne found me that night.
Not because I called him. But because, somehow, he just knew.
He saw me sitting by the pier—knees to my chest, hoodie up, headphones in but nothing playing.
"Hey," he said, sitting beside me, as if we'd planned this.
I didn't speak.
He didn't ask questions.
Instead, he held out a notebook.
Worn leather. Scuffed edges.
"Write something," he said.
I took it slowly. Opened to the first page. The entire thing was filled with strangers' handwriting.
Poems. Confessions. Regrets.
A traveling journal.
"I started this years ago," Zayne said. "It's like a graveyard for thoughts. Some people just needed to bury a sentence."
I flipped until I found an empty page.
And wrote:
> He left without saying goodbye, but somehow I still remember the way he said my name.
That's the worst kind of cruelty—the kind that lingers softly.
Zayne read it silently.
Then looked at me. Not the way people look at you when you're broken, but the way someone stares at a painting in a gallery too long because it makes them feel seen.
"You still love him," he said. Not accusing. Just truth.
I nodded. "I don't know if it's love… or if I'm just addicted to the grief."
---
Back at home, Nia was pacing.
Her hands were clenched into fists, and I knew something was wrong.
"You went out with him again?" she snapped.
"What's wrong with Zayne?" I asked, pulling off my hoodie.
Nia crossed her arms. "He's not a solution. He's just another silence in a different shape."
I blinked, stunned by her sharpness.
"This isn't about Zayne," I said slowly. "What's really going on?"
She paused. Swallowed. Looked away.
Then she whispered, "Anesu called."
Her ex-fiancé.
The one who left her at the altar two years ago.
I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say anything.
I just walked over and hugged her.
Sometimes, heartbreak makes us cruel. Sometimes, it makes us kind.
And sometimes, it makes us mirror each other's wounds without meaning to.
---
The next day, Isla responded.
> Isla Rayne:
I didn't send that voice note to hurt you. I sent it because I think you deserve to know that he never really left. Not fully. He just got scared. And then… someone scared him more.
That last part.
"Someone scared him more."
It rang in my head like a riddle wrapped in fire.
---
I showed Zayne the message.
He frowned. "Do you want to find out what she means?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "What if I do—and it breaks me more?"
"Then we break slowly," he said. "Together."
---
That night, I dreamed of Luca.
We weren't fighting. We weren't crying.
We were just sitting in that sunlit kitchen. His hand was in mine. The air was soft.
He looked at me and said, "I wish I knew how to stay."
And when I woke up, I was crying.
But I also knew—I had to know the truth.
No matter what it cost me.
---