Chapter 44 The Woman Who Doesn't Remember Me

• DANTE
• The door closed behind me with that hollow sound one never forgets—that dry echo that doesn’t just mark the end of a scene, but the burial of hope. I walked away without looking back, not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew that if I turned even once, if I paused a second longer in that doorway, I would break. I would fall to my knees like a soldier realizing there’s no homeland left to return to.
• My hands were in my pockets so no one would notice the trembling—not from fear, but from restrained fury, from utter loss. I clenched my jaw so tightly that the bone ached, not out of bravery, but to stop myself from screaming her name to the heavens. A name that no longer allows me to stand by her side.