Not at first.
She told herself she meant what she wrote. That it was better to leave things as they were. That maybe she had let herself believe in something that was never meant to last.
But some nights, she still thought about him.
About the weight of his words.
About the way her heart had begun to race every time she turned a page, searching for what he had left behind.
She had given him an out.
And he had taken it.
So why did it still feel like something was unfinished?
Noa watched her with quiet knowing, tapping a pen against her notebook as they sat on the apartment balcony, the city stretched below them.
"You're thinking about it again," she said.
Lana exhaled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Noa hummed, unimpressed. "Right. Just like you weren't thinking about it last night. Or the night before."
Lana pressed her lips together, staring down at her untouched cup of tea.
"It's over," she said simply.
Noa raised an eyebrow. "Is it?"
Lana didn't answer.
Because she wasn't sure.
Her fingers curled against the ceramic, the warmth grounding her even as something inside her still felt adrift.
She hadn't expected it to mean this much.
But it did.
And maybe that was the part that scared her the most.
—
Oryn didn't go back.
Not at first.
But the book stayed with him.
And every time he glanced at it, something in his chest tightened.
He could still see her handwriting. The curve of her letters. The weight of the final words she had left him.
"Then maybe this is where our story ends."
He should have been able to let it go.
But some stories weren't meant to be left unfinished.
And some names were impossible to forget.