He shouldn’t have looked up. He’d told himself he wouldn’t.
 But then he saw him.

Kai Blake.

The name he’d buried under anger, under years of pretending not to care. The boy who’d vanished without a word. The one who’d made him believe love was a lie whispered by liars.

Now he was here pale, quie and someone else’s arm was around him.

Felix Gosh.

Rylan’s jaw tightened. The image burned Kai leaning against that man, trusting him, eyes closed like he used to with him.

Anger was easier than heartbreak.
 He told himself he didn’t care. Told himself this was business. Told himself Kai Blake was nothing more than a memory he’d outgrown.

But when the elevator doors closed, Rylan stayed there, staring at his reflection in the glass until it blurred.

He whispered so quietly no one heard,
 “Why did you leave me?”

And somewhere deep inside, the old wound opened again.

I could still remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday.
 The rain had been relentless, pattering against the windows like a warning I didn’t want to hear. I was seventeen, stubborn, headstrong and in love with someone my parents refused to acknowledge.

I sat on the edge of my bed when they came into my room, faces stern, eyes sharp with judgment. My father’s voice was low, trembling with anger I would later recognize as fear.

“Rylan, we need to talk,” he said.

I didn’t flinch. I knew what was coming.

“They’re saying… this Blake boy…” my mother’s voice cracked, almost like she was battling with herself. “People are talking, Rylan. You know what they’ll say in church. In society.”

I swallowed hard. I had thought I could defend it. I had thought I could make them see.

“I… like him,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Kai Blake I care about him.”

My father slammed a hand on the desk. “Care about him? Or are you just experimenting? This is temporary! Boys your age you’re not serious!”

My mother’s eyes filled with tears. “If you continue with him, we… we don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe we… can’t handle it. Maybe…” Her voice trembled. “Maybe we’ll die if this continues.”

The words hit me like a knife. Die? Abandon me? Because I wanted to love someone?

“I… I won’t leave him,” I said, voice breaking. “He’s not just… an experiment!”

They exchanged a glance, sharp, cold. “You’ve made promises to your father’s parents,” my father said. “You’ve promised you’ll stay away from him. Do you understand what will happen if you don’t?”

“I… I can’t,” I whispered, clutching the edge of the bed. “I just can’t.”

“You will, Rylan,” my mother said, tears running freely down her cheeks. “Or you’ll ruin everything for all of us. For your name, for your family, for the church. Think of what people will say if…”

Her voice faltered, shaking, and I realized she meant it. They would rather live in their perfection than let me be happy.

I left the room that night in silence, heartbroken in ways I didn’t know a seventeen-year-old could survive. I saw him once more before I left that town   Kai, waiting, eyes full of hope. But I didn’t reach him. The words I had never spoken, the promises I had never made they all died in the rain.

I promised them. I turned my back on him. And every day after, that promise felt like a chain around my heart.

Years later, I could still hear my mother’s trembling voice, my father’s hard edge. The anger. The fear. The suffocating belief that love like mine was a crime against God and society. All God taught is to love and people making rule.

And yet, here I was now. Older. Stronger. Still in love with the boy I had abandoned.

I clenched my fists, staring out the window. I would never let them dictate my heart again. Not for Kai. Not ever.