The paint coating my body was starting to make me dizzy. The chill of the near-freezing air bit at my soaked skin as I knelt on the ground, trapped in a frozen eternity. The wind cut through me like a thousand knives, but it didn’t compare to the deeper wound Cohen had left in my heart.
At last, I couldn’t hold on.
Just as I felt myself slipping, unsure if it was the cold or my mind playing tricks, I felt warmth, a real, comforting embrace.
It wasn’t the sharp, cold grip I knew from Cohen. This one was gentle, and it didn’t just steady me; it melted away the cold that had seeped deep into my bones.
[I finally found you.]
[I won’t let anyone hurt you again.]
The last few messages from that unfamiliar number, along with the phone Cohen had given me, were left on the doorstep of the Whitmore family home.
In that warm, unfamiliar embrace, I left behind the place I had called home for the past eleven years. The years spent with Cohen, believing we had understood each other, convinced we loved one another, were over.