Page 70 of Beautiful Ruins
I closed my eyes briefly.
“I always will.”
She repositioned slightly, pressing closer, her cheek resting over my heart.The simplicity of it undid me more than the confession ever could have.I slid my hand into her hair and held her there.
She tilted her head, looking up at me.
“Does it ever get easier?”
It seemed like she genuinely wanted to know.The honest answer hovered between us.
“No.”
Her face fell slightly.
“But it starts to feel… different,” I amended.“You learn to carry it.You learn how to function with it.Some days it’s intolerable.Some days it’s just there.”
And for the first time in six years, the weight of what I’d lost didn’t feel like the only thing in my chest.
There was grief.Yes.But there was also her.Warm.Alive.Locked into my side like she’d chosen me.And that terrified me.Because wanting her meant risking everything all over again.But not having her… That wasn’t an option anymore.
22
Izzy
It’s funny how, when you’re in the moment, you think you know everything.
You think you’re in love.You think this person is it.The one.The future.The axis your whole world should spin around.You build castles in your head with their name carved into the doorframe.You plan cities and babies and Sunday mornings before you’ve even learned the shape of their silence.
I was twenty-five, and before Raze, I’d been with a total of four men.
Four.
That sounded like a respectable number when you thought about it.It sounded experienced.Grown.Mature.It wasn’t.
The last of them was Nathan.
Nathan with the soft hands and the big promises.Nathan who always had a new plan but never any follow-through.I met him in that drifting phase of my life—the years when everyone else seemed to sprint forward while I wandered sideways.Instead of college, I worked dead-end jobs that smelled like fryer oil and cleaning chemicals.I shared houses with people who thought ambition was a personality flaw.We stayed up too late, drank too much, talked about changing the world without ever changing ourselves.
That’s how I met him.
We were both lost.The difference was, I eventually decided I didn’t want to stay that way.
I got tired of waking up in bedrooms that weren’t really mine, next to men who didn’t see me.Tired of scraping by.Tired of pretending I wasn’t meant for more.So I picked myself up, filled out the forms, and applied to art school as a mature-age student with a résumé that didn’t look too impressive but did the job nonetheless.
It was humiliating and empowering all at once.
I worked during the day and studied at night.I stopped going to parties.I stopped answering texts from people who only remembered I existed after midnight.I built something out of discipline instead of desire.
In hindsight, the only thing standing between me and the life I wanted was Nathan.
It sounds dramatic when I say it like that.Like I’m rewriting history to make him the villain and myself the naïve girl who didn’t know better.
But that’s the truth of it.
Every time I tried to move forward, he pulled me back.Every small step I took toward something better—toward art school, toward stability, toward ambition—was followed by ten steps backward because I was dragging him with me.
If I stayed late at the studio, he’d sulk.
