Willow was gone, and that had been the intention from the beginning.
For weeks Miles told himself that distance would solve everything. He wanted space from the weight of what he had done, from the memory of her eyes searching his face in the hospital room, from the lie that had begun as strategy and slowly settled into something that felt permanent. Now he finally had the silence he claimed to want. The clean separation he designed with such care stood exactly where he meant it to stand.
The plan had worked.
He should have felt relief settling into the empty spaces she left behind. Instead the absence pressed against him like a hand closing around his ribs, tightening slowly until each breath felt shallow and unsatisfying. The sensation felt less like freedom than panic, sharp and insistent, as though something vital had slipped out of reach and might not return.
