CHAPTER 109

CHAPTER 109
"You're going to regret this, Mackenzie."
His voice sliced across the thunder, rough and low like rocks in his throat.

Rain sheets fell about us, drenching us both, plastering my curls against my cheeks. I didn't back off. I didn't blink. I just stood there in the storm with the man who once broke my world—and now gripped the torn pages of my heart between his fingers.

"Regret what?" I said, crossing my arms, bag thumping on my hip. "Telling the truth? Or picking my voice over your ego?"

Lightning lit up his face—haunted, wet, and furious.

"You think this is about me?" Tony sneered, advancing. The storm danced around him as if it were a servant to him. "You parade it—my file, my name again. Do you realize what it'll do to my mom? My brothers and sisters? You think Queens Arrow is going to cradle them in her arms when the vultures come to feed?"

"This has nothing to do with your family," I bit back. "This is what happened. What your friend did. What you let happen."

His expression hardened. Water poured down his face, mingling with the sweat, the rain, and a desperation-like desperation.

"It was my past," he snarled. "I lived it. I bled it. And I've already paid."

Not enough," I whispered, trembling as much with the cold as with the hurt within me. "I'm not the quiet girl anymore, Tony. Not even for you."

He flinched as if I'd hit him.

His hand went to his chest—like I'd torn it open and removed something from it. "If you keep yourself quiet for me," he whispered, "then I really did destroy you.".

The words hit me like thunder. My mouth opened. I tasted rain and shame.

A muffled shout behind snapped me back. Arizen huddled under the overhang of the dorm, arms wrapped tight around her body, refusing to come out into the rain.

"Mackenzie," she shouted a second time. "You're doing it again. You're letting him get inside your skin."

Tony's eyes flashed. "Let her talk."

Arizen's voice was sharp, clear even against the wind. "You're still too scared to tell the entire truth. And you're using him as a cover to do it."

I whirled to Tony, my heart pounding.

"I am not hiding," I said.

"Then why is your finger resting on delete every time you hit send?" Arizen asked.

Tony looked between us, the tension in his body coiling, relaxing into a thing that looked like grief. "Because she knows she'll lose me," he breathed.

And that was it, wasn't it?

The question dangled between us like the mist curling at our toes: What was I willing to pay for truth? My safety? My chance at peace? Him?

"I wanted to believe we could have both," I whispered. "The truth and… something that felt like redemption."

Tony's fist clenched. "You think I don't want that too?"

"I think," I said, "you want to be forgiven without ever being fully seen."

He turned his face away. The rain hammered harder.

"Don't publish it, Mackenzie," he said, shaking. "Don't make me into a monster again."

"You made yourself that," Arizen snapped behind me.

But I didn't look her way.

I looked at the man who had once held my terror.

"I'm not describing a monster," I told him. "I'm describing silence. All of the ways it kills us. What happens when we love someone who can kill us if we let them."

He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the scar beneath his right eye flinch.

"And am I still that man?" he said.

I was breathless. No. Yes. I don't know.

"You're the one who chased me off my camera," I said. "But also the one who encouraged me to grab it again."

He swallowed. "So this is farewell."

I didn't answer.

I was too busy wondering how it all began. The photograph that ruined it all. The boy who wrecked me. The boy I almost loved.

The boy who stood before me now, soaked, and maybe still breaking.

"I'm not regretting meeting you," I said to him.

His head dropped. Just slightly. His chest struggled as though to breathe hurt him.

"But I won't be hindered by you."

I turned and left.

I could feel his eyes on the small of my back like fire scorching down my spine. I didn't let up, though. Not when Arizen brushed against my hand. Not when we went back to the dorm.

Secure inside, out of the storm, she handed me a towel.

"You okay?" she asked.

"No," I told her honestly. "But I will be."

She nodded, collapsing over me on the couch. "You can still rephrase it. Break it more gently. Make it about the system, not the individual."

"I did," I said. "But that would be a lie. And I've already lied too much."

I opened my laptop. The document was still open. My cursor blinking.

I recalled his voice. His fists. The scar on the knuckle of his fist from the night everything came unraveled. I recalled the letter he gave me. The truth buried in the juvenile file. What he hadn't done. What he'd let be done.

And I recalled the girl I'd been. The girl who thought silence was safer.

I sent it.

My breath shook.

I didn't cry.

Arizen looked at me. "You didn't choose him."

"I chose me."