Thirty-One

Ryan:

The silence in the hallway was unbearable. I stood there, my chest tight, feeling like the walls were closing in around me. I couldn't breathe. The weight of what had just happened was pressing down on me with a force I couldn't escape. Dani's words kept echoing in my head, and the longer I stood there, the more I felt like I was suffocating under the guilt of it all.

Every step I had taken to get here—everything I'd said, every decision I'd made—had cornered me.

I'd been so terrified of losing something I couldn't even define, so desperate to protect something I couldn't bring myself to name. But now? Now, the silence between Dani and me felt louder than any argument we could have ever had. And I was the one responsible for it.

I couldn't shake the image of her fa……