“I should’ve never listened to you.”
The words came out before Ava could stop them, sharp and raw in the empty space around her. The air felt thick—heavy, like it was pressing down on her chest, suffocating her.
She didn’t care that she was alone, or that the whole world might have heard her. The silence needed to break. And it did, with her own voice cutting through the stillness.
She sat on the cold metal bleachers, knees pulled up tight to her chest, chin resting on them. The sky above her was bleeding into gold, but it didn’t feel like a new beginning. It felt like something was dying.
Something was ending, and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to face it.
The field stretched out in front of her, empty. Her school stood behind her like a shadow. Only the soft creak of metal beneath her and the rustle of her jacket as she shifted kept her company.
The world felt too big. Too loud. Too empty.
Her fingers tightened around the watch on her wrist, but she didn’t look at it. Time wasn’t important anymore. What mattered now was how long it had taken her to get here, to this moment.
How much pain she’d packed away in her ribs, how many versions of herself she’d lived through just to survive.
She didn’t feel the triumph everyone expected. The sunrise didn’t feel like an achievement—it felt like the weight of a past she couldn’t escape. Like something was ending, and something else was refusing to begin.
And still, she stayed there, letting the silence hold her. Not hiding. Not waiting. Just being.
Footsteps broke through the stillness. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. She knew who it was before he spoke.
Jace sat down beside her, his presence heavy but quiet. For once, there was no bravado, no mocking tone. Just the sound of his breath. The quiet between them was thick with the unspoken words that neither of them had the courage to say.
Ava didn’t turn to face him. Her eyes stayed locked on the sky, watching the light shift, the world slowly waking up around them.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” she said softly. The words hung in the air between them, heavier than she expected.
Jace let out a shaky breath. “I wasn’t planning to.”
She nodded, not looking at him. The moment stretched out between them, thick and fragile. He didn’t say anything more, and neither did she. There was nothing left to say. Nothing to fix.
But after a long silence, his voice broke through again, quiet but full of something Ava couldn’t place. “You deserve a prince.”
Her lips trembled, a bitter laugh escaping before she could stop it. It cracked at the end, a sound that didn’t belong to her.
“Then why did the villain kiss me first?”
Jace flinched, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t have an answer for that, didn’t have anything to say to make it go away. Ava finally turned her head, her eyes meeting his for the first time in what felt like forever.
“You don’t get to rewrite this into some love story, Jace,” she said, her voice steady, but there was an ache underneath. “It doesn’t work that way.”
He nodded slowly, as if the weight of her words were finally sinking in. “I know.”
“You do?” she whispered, barely audible. He looked away, his jaw clenching.
“Because the villain didn’t know it was love,” he said, his voice low, tight. “Because the villain thought it was war.”
Ava stared at him, taking in every word, every look. Her chest felt like it was going to crack open with the weight of everything he had never said before.
“And now?” she asked, her voice small but fierce.
“Now,” he said, eyes haunted, “I know I lost something I never knew how to keep.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. They just sat there, wrapped in the silence, wrapped in the same ache, the same hurt that had been building between them for years.
Ava wiped a tear from her cheek. “It’s hard to unlearn damage,” she said, her voice catching. “Harder to admit you caused it.”
“Hardest,” Jace said quietly, “to admit you let it happen.”
She blinked at him, surprised by the honesty in his voice. “You’re not trying to win anymore.”
“I think I already lost,” he said softly, eyes distant. “Not just you. Something else. Something in me.”
Ava exhaled, a weight lifting off her chest. “Maybe losing is the only way you start seeing what’s left.”
“Or what was never there,” he added.
Neither of them smiled. It wasn’t that kind of morning.
They sat there, the world shifting around them, the sun rising, the light spilling over them, but it felt unfair. As if they hadn’t earned this calm. As if this peace wasn’t meant for them.
Ava fiddled with the zipper of her jacket, the cold wind biting at her skin. “I used to think love had to look like a story,” she said, her voice distant, full of memories that stung. “Like grand gestures. Like fireworks. Like it was supposed to be perfect.”
Jace nodded slowly, his eyes on the horizon. “And now?”
“Now,” she said, her voice firm, “I think love is just… showing up. Without hurting someone to make room for yourself.”
He was quiet for a long time. “I don’t think I’ve ever shown up for anyone without hurting them first.”
“Then maybe it’s time you learn how,” she said, her voice steady and sure. “Not for me. Not for this. Just for yourself.”
Jace looked at her then, really looked, and for the first time, she didn’t see the boy who had broken her. She saw the one who was trying to rebuild himself.
“I wish I could go back,” he said quietly. “Not to change everything. Just to stop the version of me who thought cruelty was strength.”
Ava’s heart ached with his words. “You can’t,” she said, “But you can stop becoming him again.”
The words hit hard. Neither of them moved.
Jace reached for his backpack, pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper, and handed it to her. Ava stared at it, her fingers trembling as she unfolded it. The sketch. The one she had drawn of him when she was younger. The one she never meant for anyone to see.
“I kept it,” Jace said quietly. “All these years. I don’t know why.”
Ava looked down at the drawing. The boy who had haunted her for so long, drawn with the shaky hand of a girl who had believed in something that wasn’t real. She could feel the weight of it in her chest.
“Because some part of you always knew who you were before the world told you otherwise,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
Ava folded the sketch and handed it back. “Keep it,” he said. “It doesn’t belong to me.”
“It never did,” she replied, her voice soft but final.
They sat there for a moment longer, the silence settling around them like a thick fog, but Ava could feel it—the beginning.
She stood slowly, stretching her legs, her body already moving toward something she couldn’t quite name. Jace stayed seated, watching her, his expression unreadable.
“What happens now?” he asked, voice thick with uncertainty.
“I don’t know,” Ava said honestly. She stopped, her heart pounding in her chest. “But I know what doesn’t happen.”
Jace tilted his head, eyes searching hers.
“We don’t go back,” she said firmly, her words cutting through the uncertainty. “Not to the way it was. Not to the lies we told ourselves.”
Jace’s gaze deepened. “And we don’t move forward?”
Ava shook her head, her eyes steely. “Not until we stop dragging the wreckage with us.”
The watch on her wrist felt heavier now. She wasn’t sure if it was the weight of time or the weight of everything she hadn’t said yet.
She took one breath. Then another. Then she stepped away. She stood at the edge of the bleachers, eyes fixed on the horizon, her voice low and steady.
“I’m done waiting,” she said. “Done hoping someone else is the answer.” Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. “I kept thinking someone would come fix me. Love me the right way. Teach me how to matter.”
Jace didn’t interrupt.
“But maybe it’s not about being chosen,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s about choosing myself.”
The watch ticked once, louder than it ever had—like time itself was listening. Ava didn’t flinch. She let it echo in her chest. Then, she turned back to Jace one last time.
“Then maybe it’s time I stop being the girl waiting to be rescued.”