Mara
The speed at which Lucian left the house told me something was off. He said he had somewhere to be, but he didn’t linger—not even for a kiss goodbye.
That wasn’t like him. And I hadn’t been in the bathroom long when my phone buzzed at 1:30 with an MMS from an unknown number.
I opened it.
A photo.
Lucian. At Jame’s Cafeteria.
With Tina.
She was hugging him—and kissing him. Not on the cheek. On the mouth. My stomach twisted. My first instinct was denial. Maybe it was an old photo. Maybe it was fake. But no—the timestamp was current. And the clothes he left in matched what he was wearing in the image.
I stared at it for a long time, frozen. Trying not to cry. Failing.
Another message followed.
“Be careful how quickly you give your heart away.”
No name. No number I recognized.
