I Left Before He Could Watch Me Break

THREE.

Jayce POV

The house was too quiet when I got home. I noticed it before I noticed anything else, no sound of her moving around upstairs, no smell of whatever tea she made when she couldn’t sleep, nothing.

Just quiet and I told myself she was probably asleep already, that she had gone straight to bed after storming off from the cabin, and some small, cowardly part of me was almost relieved. One less conversation to have tonight.

Then I saw the note on the kitchen table. I don’t know why my hands went cold before I even picked it up. Maybe some part of me already knew.

^^^Jayce, I heard what you said tonight, and I understand. I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore. I’m going somewhere I can rest. Please don’t look for me and I hope you’re happy.^^^

I read it three times. Then a fourth. Waiting for it to say something different.

It didn’t accuse me of anything. That was the part that undid me not one angry word, not one insult thrown back at me the way I probably deserved. She had written it softly and sleekly. Like she was the one apologizing.

I hope you’re happy.

Who writes that to someone who just humiliated them?

“Damaris?” I said her name out loud to the empty house like an i***t, like she might answer from another room. Nothing did, I went upstairs two at a time, threw open our bedroom door, and found the closet half empty, drawers hanging open, her mother’s picture frame gone from the bedstand.

She hadn’t just left the room. She had left entirely.

My wolf came up so fast and so violent it nearly took my knees out from under me. Not the low simmering guilt I was half-expecting all night, this was different, something closer to panic, closer to grief, a howling pressure behind my ribs that had no business being there.

I had never felt him react like this. Not when we argued. Not when she cried and I didn’t know how to fix it. This was something else. Something that felt like the floor dropping out from under both of us.

Find her, he snarled. Find her now.

“I don’t even know where she went,” I said out loud, and hated how my voice cracked.

I called her. Straight to voicemail. Called again, same thing.

I texted: Damaris, where are you, please just tell me you’re safe.

I watched the message sit there unread, unanswered, mocking me.

Rosie found me like that, phone in hand, note still crumpled in my other fist.

“Hey.” She stepped close, reaching for my arm the way she had a hundred times before, easy and familiar.

“What’s wrong? Is this about earlier? Look, don’t let her guilt you, she was eavesdropping, she..”

“She’s gone.” I pulled my arm back before her hand landed, and the movement surprised me more than it seemed to surprise her. I hadn’t decided to do it.

My body had just done it on its own, some instinct recoiling before my mind caught up.

Rosie blinked. “Gone where?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem.” I held up the note, though I didn’t let her take it. “She’s not answering her phone. Her closet’s empty.”

“She’s probably just at Iris’s, being dramatic.”

“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than I meant it to. “Don’t call her dramatic right now.”

Something flickered across Rosie’s face, surprise, maybe irritation, I didn’t have the patience to name it.

She reached for me again, softer this time, and again I stepped back before she could touch me, and this time the confusion on her face was harder to miss.

“Jayce, what is wrong with you?”

I didn’t have an answer. All I knew was that every part of me that used to feel steady around her now felt wrong, off, like static under my skin, and I didn’t have time to think about what that meant. “I have to find her.”

“She left a note, she clearly said don’t look for her.”

“I don’t care what the note said.” My voice broke on the last word and I hated it.

“Something’s wrong, Rosie. I can feel it. This isn’t her being upset, this is..” I didn’t even know how to finish the sentence. “It felt final. The note felt final.”

I left her standing in the kitchen and didn’t look back.

Emmeline’s cabin was still lit when I got there, and she opened the door with the tired, wary look of someone who already knew this conversation was coming before I said a word.

“Jayce.”

“Where is she?” No greeting, no patience left for one.

“Damaris. Where did she go?”

“I don’t know where she went.” Emmeline’s voice was steady, but her eyes weren’t quite meeting mine, and that told me more than anything she could have said. “She came to me a few hours ago, upset. Then she left.”

“Upset about what? About me?”

“You will have to ask her that.”

“I can’t ask her, Emmeline, she’s gone, her phone’s off, she left me a note that reads like a goodbye and I don’t understand why, so please..” My voice cracked apart completely, and I didn’t care anymore how it sounded.

“Please. Something’s wrong with her. I can feel it through the bond, it’s never felt like this before, like something’s like something’s slipping. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Emmeline’s jaw tightened. For a long moment she didn’t say anything at all, and the silence sat there between us like something alive, something with weight.

“Emmeline.” My voice dropped, quieter now, almost pleading. “Please.”

“That’s not mine to tell you,” she said finally.

The words themselves were careful, measured, the kind of thing a healer says when she’s protecting a patient’s privacy.

But her face didn’t match her voice, her eyes were wet, her mouth pressed into a hard line like she was holding something back by force, and for just a second, just one unguarded second, I saw something on her face that looked exactly like grief.

The kind you have for someone you’re afraid you’re about to lose.

My wolf went utterly still inside me, the way the air goes still right before a storm breaks.

“Emmeline.” I took a step closer. “What is it? What’s wrong with her.”

“Ask Damaris.”

“I can’t find Damaris.” My hands were shaking now, and I didn’t bother hiding it.

“That’s the whole problem. She’s gone, and you know something, and you’re standing there telling me it’s not yours to tell while looking at me like I’m about to lose her, so just…” My voice broke entirely.

“Just tell me if she’s okay. That’s all I need. Tell me she’s okay.”

Emmeline looked at me for a long, long moment, and didn’t answer.

That silence was the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life.