I Left Before He Could Watch Me Break

FOUR.

Damaris POV

I didn’t have a destination. I just drove endlessly. The road unspooled in front of my headlights, dark and empty, and somewhere around the fourth hour.

I stopped pretending I knew where I was going, but at least I knew I was away from the cabin, from Emmeline, asshole Joyce and the b***h. That was the only direction that mattered. Also away from the note I had left on the table, away from a life that had turned out to be smaller and crueler than I would let myself believe.

My hands ached from gripping the wheel too tight. I made myself loosen them, one finger at a time, and that’s when the memories started creeping in, uninvited.

Rosie, three winters ago, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor braiding my hair before the pack gathering, laughing so hard at her own joke she couldn’t finish it.

“You’re going to be the only person at that party who actually talks to me like a person and not the Alpha’s ward,” she’d said, I had believed her. I had loved her, actually loved her, the way you love someone who chooses you when they don’t have to.

When had that stopped being true? I turned it over and over, searching for the exact moment, and couldn’t find one. Maybe there wasn’t one moment. Maybe it had eroded slowly, a kindness at a time, until what was left standing in that cabin tonight was someone I’d never really known at all.

I laughed, short and humorless, into the empty car.

“You will think I would have noticed the water leaving the well before it went dry.”

The road blurred a little. I blinked hard and kept driving.

Jayce came next, because he always did, because two years of loving someone doesn’t just switch off because they broke your heart in one night. I thought of the first time he had found me practicing knife throws alone in the training yard, how he’d leaned against the fence and said, “You’re better than half my warriors and you don’t even look tired.” I thought of him falling asleep with his head in my lap during pack council meetings, of the way he used to trace circles on my wrist without seeming to notice he was doing it, like it was just something his hands did around me.

Where did that man go? Or had he never really existed, just a mask over the one from tonight, the one who called me a burden he was tired of babying?

Maybe both were real, I thought. Maybe that’s what makes it hurt this much.

My phone buzzed in the cupholder. Iris!

Iris: Jayce came to my place. He knows something’s wrong, he could tell from the note. He’s asking me straight out if you’re sick. I didn’t say anything but Damaris he looked wrecked, I don’t know how much longer I can lie to his face

My stomach dropped. I pulled the phone into my lap, thumb shaking over the screen.

Me: Please. Please just a little longer. I need this to be my choice, not something he finds out and feels obligated by

Iris: He asked Emmeline too. She wouldn’t tell him but he said her face gave it away. He’s not stupid, Damaris. He’s going to figure it out with or without us

Me: Then let him figure it out after. Not from you. Not from her. I need you to hold on for me, please

There was a long pause before the next message came through.

Iris: I hate this so much. I’m only doing it because I love you. Please tell me you’re okay right now

I stared at the question for a long moment. My chest had started aching again, that same cold hollow ache from the cabin, spreading slow through my ribs like ice water.

Me: I’m okay. Just tired. I’ll call you when I stop somewhere

It was a lie, but it was a small one, the kind I hoped wouldn’t count against me later.

I set the phone down and kept driving, and the ache in my chest kept climbing, and somewhere in the dark my thoughts drifted back to Rosie one more time, unwillingly.

I remembered her holding my hand at my mother’s memorial, five years ago, saying nothing, just staying, because she’d understood that some grief doesn’t need words. I remembered thinking, this is what real friendship feels like.

Had all of that been a lie too? Or had she just changed, slowly, the way people do, wanting things she used to be content without?

I didn’t know which answer hurt more.

My vision blurred, and at first I thought it was tears again. I had cried so much tonight my eyes felt raw and swollen but this was different.

The edges of the road went soft and doubled, streetlights smearing into long yellow streaks, and a wave of dizziness rolled through me so hard I had to grip the wheel to keep from swerving.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself, voice shaking. “Okay, pull over. Just pull over.”

My hands didn’t want to cooperate. The world tilted sideways, my foot fumbling for the brake, and I steered the car onto the shoulder more by instinct than sight, gravel crunching under the tires as I staggered to a stop.

I sat there, gasping, both hands pressed to the steering wheel like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

Damaris.

My wolf’s voice, when it finally came, wasn’t a growl or a snarl this time. It was small and faint. A whimper curling weakly at the edge of my mind, the way an animal sounds when it’s too exhausted to fight anymore.

I know, I thought back, or tried to, my own thoughts going syrupy and slow. I know. I’m sorry.

The dashboard lights blurred into nothing. My head fell back against the seat, heavy, so heavy, and the last coherent thought I had before the darkness swallowed everything was that I hadn’t even made it far enough away to be safe from being found.