By the time Jake finally walked into his penthouse, the city was already swallowed by night.
He had roamed around the city after leaving Bella's apartment and now it was past 8 p.m.
Sweliss glowed with scattered streetlights and high-rise reflections, but inside Jake's home, everything was dark. He didn't bother turning on the lights. He moved through the shadows until he reached the living room and sank onto the couch like a man whose legs no longer had strength to hold the weight of his mistakes.
The silence was deafening. He had spent the entire day replaying Bella's absence at the door, Chloe's words, the sound of Timothy's small voice asking if he could help him fix it.
He had waited outside that apartment for hours, hoping she would change her mind, that she would step out, that she would at least look at him but she never did. And he didn't blame her.
