Author's note: This is the last chapter. I still have more story to tell, but after seeing this novel leaked on pirate sites, I've lost the motivation to continue writing.
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Jay Arkwell — "The Ones We Push Away Are the Ones We Wish Would Stay"
She trusts me.
Of all the things I never asked for… that's the one that hit the hardest.
Because I know what I am.
A walking contradiction.
A lazy genius.
A boy with power too broken to admire and a heart too tired to feel anything fully.
Yet she looks at me like I am worth saving.
Like I am someone who can still choose to stay.
What a cruel kindness.
I want to tell her everything— that I remember more than I let on. That I see patterns breaking around us, that this simulation, this shattered dreamscape, is not just malfunctioning. It is mourning. Reaching for the past. Echoing futures that no longer exist.
And I—
…I am its center. Its key. Its cancer.
