Ava didn’t move, didn’t think—she just stood there, rooted in the moment.
Jace was closer now. So close she could feel the heat of his body, the tremble in the air between them. The world around them faded, muffled by the rush of her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
He was leaning in, and she didn’t stop him.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, her breath uneven, lips parted, as his warmth washed over her. She didn’t panic. She didn’t plan, she simply let him.
His lips brushed hers—soft, almost hesitant. There was no bravado in it, no teasing, no harshness. Just a quiet touch, the kind that came from uncertainty, from a question neither of them had answered yet.
The kiss lingered, fragile like glass, as though neither of them believed they were allowed to be here. To be this close. To feel like this.
Ava didn’t pull away. Her fingers clenched against the fabric of her clothes, her chest rising and falling with each breath, slow and uneven. Her heart cracked open—not from pain, but from something else, something she didn’t have a name for.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean. But it was real. And for the first time, it didn’t feel like pretending.
When their lips finally broke apart, Ava’s eyes opened, and she didn’t know what to feel. The space between them was filled with too many questions—too many unspoken things they hadn’t said.
She wasn’t sure if the kiss meant forgiveness. Or if it meant they could ever be okay.
For the first time, something inside her shifted. Maybe this was a beginning. And for now, that was enough. But then she looked up.
Her breath caught in her throat, sharp and sudden, as her gaze locked on the window beside them.
There was a reflection. But not just any reflection.
Her teenage self stared back at her. Same face. Same frizzy curls. Same wide, uncertain eyes. Same heartache that had never quite gone away.
But this version of her wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t even blinking. She stood frozen, watching—mouth slightly open, eyes wide with disbelief, as if she’d just witnessed a crash she couldn’t look away from.
Ava’s body went cold. The room around her spun and stalled. The kiss had been warm, the moment fragile, but this—this was an ice-cold slap of reality.
‘No. No, no, no,’ Ava thought, heart pounding as she took a step back, her hands trembling.
She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to face it.
But there it was—her teenage self, frozen in the glass. The version of her that had never had the chance to heal. The girl who had fought through every insult, every rejection, every lonely night she spent convincing herself she didn’t matter.
She hadn’t been ready to forgive. Not then. And maybe not now. But the sight of herself in the glass—judging her, silent, broken—was too much.
Jace turned to her, still dazed from the kiss, eyes slightly unfocused. He wasn’t looking at the reflection. He wasn’t even looking at her.
“What is it?” he asked quietly, voice low.
She turned away from the glass, hands shaking, heart pounding in her ears. “I saw myself,” she whispered. “Not now-me. Before-me.”
Jace frowned, stepping closer. “What are you talking about?” She grabbed his wrist without thinking. “In the window. I saw… me. From then. From before any of this.”
Her voice was cracking now, unspooling faster than she could control it. “She looked at me like I did something awful.” Jace stayed quiet, unsure. Ava stepped toward the glass again, but the reflection had vanished—just her face now, pale and wild-eyed. Her voice dropped. “She knows.”
“Knows what?” he asked gently.
“That I let you touch me,” she said. “After everything. After all the nights she cried, all the letters she wrote, all the ways she tried to survive you.”
Her voice broke fully now. “She saw me kiss the boy who broke her.”
Jace didn’t argue. He just stood there, still and stricken, as if something invisible had collapsed between them. Ava pressed her palm to the window, trying to make it stay solid.
“She’s still there,” she whispered. “She’s not gone. She’s still inside me, and she’s not okay with this.”
Her tears spilled freely now, not from guilt—but from something deeper. A rupture in her soul.
“She was fighting to feel worthy,” she said. “And I just… stepped over her to feel something again.”
Jace’s voice was barely audible. “You didn’t step over her. You became her protector.”
“Then why do I feel like a traitor?” she whispered. “Why do I feel like I betrayed the only version of me that ever told the truth?”
Jace moved slowly, cautiously, like he didn’t know how to help without breaking her more.
“You think healing is always clean?” he said. “You think it’s never messy?” She didn’t answer. “Maybe that version of you—the one in the window—she’s not here to punish you. Maybe she’s just scared. Like we all are.”
Ava shook her head, stepping back from the glass. “She didn’t look scared. She looked furious.”
“Then maybe she needs you to say something to her,” he said gently.
“Something you needed to hear back then.” Ava clenched her fists, eyes burning. “She won’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me.”
Her reflection flickered. The glass shimmered. Her vision blurred with tears.
“I want her to know I’m trying,” she whispered. “But I don’t think that’s enough for her.”
Jace said nothing.
The air shifted. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, quiet but constant, like a warning from another version of time.
“It’s happening again,” Ava murmured. “The timeline—whatever this is—it’s starting to break.”
“Then we stop,” Jace said. “We slow down.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but her voice caught. Because the crack in the glass had just split wider—and behind it, that reflection had returned.
Only now, her lips were moving. Speaking. Ava leaned forward.
“You let him touch you?” the voice spat, as if ripped from her own throat. “After everything?”
Ava staggered back. The air around her warped. The glass pulsed. Jace stepped toward her, but her eyes were still locked on the reflection, frozen in betrayal.
“No,” she whispered. “It wasn’t like that.”
The reflection didn’t believe her. It glared back, skin pale, fists clenched. “You let him back in.”
The window shimmered. Spiderweb cracks branched fast now, breaking across the surface like veins of memory.
“It wasn’t forgiveness,” Ava choked. “It wasn’t!”