ARIA
My fingers dug into Kael's back, clutching at the fabric of his shirt like it was the only thing tethering me to this world. If he let go, I would dissolve.
I would become nothing more than the static noise in my own head, a permanent silence. His arms encircled me, not just an embrace but a containment field for my splintering self. It was a shelter I had burned down and now begged to hide within.
The guilt was not an emotion. It was a physical substance, thick and black, pouring into my lungs and hardening. Each breath was a struggle against its weight. My ribs were a cage too small for the animal grief thrashing inside.
I was so grateful to be held by him it was a kind of agony. To feel the solid, living proof of him under my hands, to press my ear to his chest and hear the steady, reliable drum of his heart. It was a mercy I had forfeited.
And the guilt ate the gratitude alive.
I had left him. I had hurt him. I had been so blind.
