stars burn the brightest when they die

The rain soaked you down to your bones as your feet hit the pavement, not carrying you fast enough away from the ache. You were shivering, your clothes plastered to your skin, but none of it mattered anymore. It felt impossibly small in comparison to the ache clawing inside your chest. You barely registered the footsteps following you as you stood in the pouring rain, letting it drown out everything else. It settled over every sense of yours like a second liquid skin.

“Wait—wait—” his voice cut through the steady patter of the rain.

It used to be comfort. Used to be the one thing you returned to when everything else got too loud.

You stopped walking, tipped your head back, looking up at the sky that granted you the small mercy of hiding your tears.

“You are my best friend, how can you—” your voice broke under the weight of it.

“I know, okay? I know it’s not easy. You think it is for me?”

You hugged yourself, arms wrapped tight like you could hold your own pieces together long enough to face him. It took a second before you found the courage to turn around.

“Don't tell me this is hard for you when you’re the one leaving. Leaving me behind like I'm not—”

“I have no choice!” his voice cracked, rough and desperate. “If I did, you know I wouldn't do this to you. You're the light of my life too.”

“Am I now?” you hissed, the words sharp as they tore their way out of your chest. “You have a really shitty way of showing it.”

His hand dragged through his dark hair, rain-soaked strands sticking to his forehead. “I am aware.”

“What am I supposed to do without you?” your voice trembled despite everything. “I am lost. I will be slowly decaying here, Jud.”

“Hey—hey, no.” He stepped closer, slow, careful, like approaching something fragile. His hands found your shoulders. They used to be grounding. Warm. Now the touch felt unbearable.

Your vision blurred as hot tears mixed with the rain, running down your cheeks in uneven streams.

“How can you leave me?” you whispered. “Just like that?”

His brows pulled together tightly at the accusation. “I need to or I'll end up dying in that ring.”

You shook your head, breath hitching. “And I will when you leave. He's going to beat me to death when you’re gone, Jud.”

“He won’t.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because you’re leaving too.”

You stilled, confusion cutting through the grief as you looked at him. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out an envelope, thick, worn at the edges. When he pressed it into your hand, you felt the weight of it immediately.

Cash. More than you had ever seen.

“Judas… what—?”

He shook his head, cutting you off gently. “It’s enough for a start. Somewhere new. You can leave.”

Your fingers curled around it, but your gaze never left his face. “I can come with you,” you said, quieter now. “If you want me to leave too…”

"You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won't drag you into my shit.” His voice softened, but it didn’t waver. “It’s not good for you.”

You scoffed, wet lashes clinging together. “Did I ever look like I cared?”

His mouth twitched just barely. Dangerously close to a smile. “No.”

You made a small, broken sound—something like see—but he stepped closer instead. His fingers moved to your face, brushing damp strands of hair away with a gentleness that didn’t match the bruises on his hands.

“I want you safe,” he murmured. “You hear me? and I can't make sure of that if you’re with me. But I'll find you, okay? I promise.”

You searched his eyes—the same storm-blue that shifted with the seasons. Lighter in the sun, darker when he lost himself to violence. But right now, they were steady. Honest. The way they had always been with you. All you could do was nod.

He pulled you into him then, folding you against his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other pressing firm between your shoulder blades like he was trying to anchor you there. His lips brushed against the crown of your head, and the softness of it made a sob tear out of you.

Your hands fisted in the back of his soaked shirt, clinging like he was the last piece of driftwood in a raging sea.

“I will miss you,” you mumbled into him, words muffled and breaking. “So much.”

His arms tightened around you, his voice hoarse. Strained.

“I’m going to miss you too, more than you know. But this isn’t the end, yeah?” he swallowed hard. “We’ll meet again.”

So you stayed like that for a moment that couldn’t hold everything it was asked to carry. Drenched in rain and something bigger than either of you. A love so fragile it barely was able to bloom.

Just two teenagers, too afraid to name what had always been there.

—

It's raining again when you turn the postcard between your fingers.

The edges are worn soft, the ink on the front nearly washed out with time. Your thumb traces over it absentmindedly before you flip it over.

His handwriting. You hadn’t seen it in years. For the longest time, you barely remembered his face, only the feeling of him. Until the day it appeared on the news. A passing mention. A suspicious death of the local priest from a town over.

It had struck you like lightning. He had been so close.

Your throat tightens as your eyes settle on the words, written in that familiar, uneven scrawl:

I am sorry. I really tried.  Please don’t forget me. — J

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This morning when you got up, everything felt ordinary from the outside.

Your neighbor greeted you in the hallway of the complex, balancing a grocery bag against her hip. The stray cat from the neighborhood circled around your legs the moment it spotted you, already knowing you’d have some chicken breast tucked somewhere in your bag.

You crouched down and took your time petting it, your hands buried in its soft black fur while it happily ate from your palm.

Everything looked the way mornings usually did.

But inside there was a feeling you couldn’t shake loose. A quiet dread that normally only lingered after a bad dream. The kind that clings to you for a moment after waking before it fades again.

Except this time it didn’t fade.

You knew you were awake.

Sometimes you joked that living with insomnia made you feel like you were always half sleepwalking anyway, drifting through days that felt slightly unreal.

But this felt different.

Over the course of the day the feeling grew, slowly shifting from restlessness into that heavy pit in your stomach that dragged everything downward like deadweight.

Still, you went on with your day.

You mindlessly stirred your matcha at work, the spoon clinking against the cup. You stole a cookie from the office supervisor’s desk when he stepped out, smirking to yourself as you did.

Small rebellions that made the day feel controllable — something to cling to, even if it was only the illusion of normality.

But ever since the news had started reporting about a meteor passing unusually close to Earth, a tiny thought had planted itself somewhere in the back of your mind.

What if the scientists were wrong?

What if fragments hit?

You tried to brush it off, everyone did. 

Still, the thought stayed.

On your way home from work, taking the bus as always, the sinking sun tinted everything outside in dying shades of orange. The city looked softer in that light, almost peaceful.

You leaned your head against the window and lifted your gaze upward. Tiny objects moved through the sky like shooting stars. Little embers of dying light. Pieces of something ancient crossing the atmosphere. Stars that had existed long before you were ever a thought in someone’s mind.

Beautiful.

For a moment you simply watched them, then the bright siren alarm blared through the bus.

You startled, your heart jumping as your phone buzzed sharply in your hand.

EMERGENCY ALERT. Civil emergency in your area. Shelter indoors immediately. Avoid travel. Monitor local news for updates.

You blinked at the screen.

Around you panic spread quickly. People murmured, voices rising as they called loved ones, checked the news, tried to understand what was happening. Fear moved through the bus like electricity.

Your gaze drifted back outside. The shooting stars were still crossing the sky. Only now they didn’t look beautiful anymore, they looked like something breaking.

And in the middle of the noise and the fear, one thought rose above everything else with sudden clarity.

Jud.

—

The church felt different that morning, had since he’d gotten up.

Not louder, quieter. The kind of silence that pressed into the walls and settled into your bones.

Jud sat in the first pew, elbows resting on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together like he had forgotten what else to do with them.

Morning light filtered through the stained glass windows, soft colors spilling across the wooden floor.

Outside the world felt wrong, frozen in suspension. He had listened to the radio earlier, the static voice of the broadcast filling the empty church with words that sounded too calm for what they meant.

Fragments.

Impact zones.

Uncertainty.

Behind the initial fear, one thought kept returning to him over and over again.

You.

He hadn’t spoken to you in years. Life had scattered the two of you in different directions the way it tends to do. And sometimes, in the most lonely hours at the rectory, he still heard the echo of your voice ‘or maybe I just imagined it’.

His first instinct hadn’t been to pray, it had been calling you.

Simple in theory, but it felt like crossing a fault line in reality — even if, given the circumstances now, it hardly mattered anymore.

His thumb hovered over your name on his phone for a long moment before he finally pressed it.

The line rang once.

Twice.

A crossable distance away at the exact same moment you were sliding into the driver’s seat of a car you absolutely had not been given permission to take.

Your bag sat on the passenger seat beside you, hastily packed. Because when the alarms had started screaming across the city, one thought had settled in your mind with absolute certainty.

There was only one place you wanted to be. The engine turned over just as your phone started ringing.

Incoming call Jud Duplenticy…

You stared at the name on the screen for a second before letting out a quiet breath.

Of course.

“Yeah?” you said, pulling the car onto the road.

On the other end of the line, Jud closed his eyes for a moment when he heard your voice.

“…Where are you?” he asked quietly.

You glanced at the road ahead.

“Funny story,” you said. “I might be committing a small felony.”

A small pause. Then you added, softer this time.

“I’m coming to you.”

Above both of you, far beyond the fragile blue of Earth’s atmosphere the sky kept burning.

—

The road to the church feels longer than you remember now.

Maybe because the world feels wrong. Too quiet in some places, too loud in others. Sirens somewhere far away. Radios blasting from open windows as people try to understand what’s happening.

But eventually the small stone building appears at the end of the road, exactly the way it always has.

Unchanged.

The church door is already open.

You park the stolen car a little crooked in the gravel and grab your bag from the passenger seat, slinging it over your shoulder as you step out. The air smells strange—like dust and heat and something metallic you can’t quite place.

For a second you just stand there looking at the door.

Years of silence between the two of you.

And now this.

You let out a quiet breath and push the door open.

Inside, the church is dim and cool. Jud is sitting in the first pew but he looks up over his shoulder the moment the door creaks.

For a second neither of you moves. It’s strange how quickly your brain tries to measure the time between who someone used to be and who they are now. The years stack up in your mind all at once.

But then he stands and suddenly the years don’t seem to matter very much.

You shift your bag higher on your shoulder, tilting your head slightly as you walk toward him.

“Well,” you say dryly, “of course the occasion that finally forces us to talk again is the possible end of the world.”

His mouth twitches. That familiar almost-smile he used to try so hard not to show.

“Seems about right,” he replies.

You stop a few steps away from him. Up close the changes are easier to see. The faint lines around his eyes. The calmness that settled into him somewhere along the way without you being there to witness it.

The collar as a symbol of the life he chose. The life that quietly pushed the two of you onto separate paths.

For a moment neither of you speaks.

Then you say softly, “Hi”.

And something in his face breaks open just a little, his dimples showing in the dying light of the church.

He doesn’t answer with words, instead he closes the distance.

The hug is immediate.

Strong.

Arms wrapping around you like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like muscle memory never forgot the shape of you.

For a second you stiffen in surprise. Then your arms come up around him too, fingers gripping the back of his shirt as your face presses into his shoulder.

And just like that it feels like no time has passed.

All the stubborn pride.

All the circumstances bigger than both of you.

They fall away in the quiet of the church like they were never strong enough to hold in the first place.

You feel his breath leave him slowly, the way someone exhales after holding it for far too long.

Your voice comes out muffled against his shoulder.

“You look… annoyingly the same.”

That earns a quiet laugh against your hair, followed by the softest, most fleeting kiss.

“You stole a car,” he murmurs.

“Borrowed,” you correct. “Temporarily.”

His hands settle more firmly against your back, like he’s making sure you’re actually there. The church stays quiet around you. Dust drifting through the colored light. The outside world holding its breath somewhere beyond the stone walls.

Your hand shifts slightly against his back. You feel the steady beat of his heart against your cheek. The same, calming rhythm that used to lull you to sleep.

When you finally pull back just enough to look at him, you realize something strange.

All the things that once felt impossible to bridge between you don’t feel so big anymore.

Not when the sky itself might be falling.

Your thumb brushes lightly against the sleeve of his shirt.

“You built a bunker next to a church,” you say, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “You know that sounds extremely suspicious.”

Jud huffs quietly. “It was practical.”

“Right,” you say. “Sure. Very normal priest behavior.”

His eyes soften. “You really came.”

You shrug one shoulder lightly. “Where else would I go?”

—

The bunker smells faintly of concrete, dust, and something metallic that’s been sitting untouched for too long.

Jud pulls the heavy door shut behind you with a deep, echoing thud that settles through the small space like a punctuation mark.

For a moment the two of you just stand there in the dimness, then he reaches over and flicks on the small camping lantern hanging from a hook on the wall.

A soft, yellow light fills the bunker.

It’s only bright enough to see the narrow bunks along one wall. The stacked boxes of canned food. Bottled water lined neatly in crates. Blankets folded with quiet, careful precision.

He built this to last.

To carry someone through weeks, maybe longer.

Outside, something hits the ground far away. The tremor travels slowly through the earth before it reaches you. The floor beneath your feet shivers faintly, like the world just took a small uneasy breath.

You both feel it, neither of you says anything.

Jud lowers himself onto the edge of one of the bunks. You sit beside him, close enough that your shoulders almost touch.

The lantern flickers slightly.

Somewhere above you, the sky is still breaking apart.

Another distant impact.

The bunker hums quietly with the vibration before it settles again into silence. 

Time moves strangely when the world might be ending.

You rest your elbows on your knees, staring at the soft glow of the lantern between your feet.

“You know,” you say eventually, voice quiet but edged with your usual dry humor, “this might be the most dramatic way we’ve ever resolved our communication issues.”

Jud huffs a quiet breath beside you. “Yeah.”

For a long moment Jud just sits there, hands loosely clasped between his knees. His gaze stays fixed on the floor like he’s trying to organize something in his mind that refuses to sit neatly.

Then he speaks. “I thought about calling you a hundred times.”

Your head tilts slightly. “But you didn’t.”

“No.”

A short, heavy pause, before his voice continues, but there’s something underneath it now. Something old.

“When I decided to become a priest… I told myself it was the right thing. That some things in life are bigger than what we want.”

You glance at him but he doesn’t look at you yet. Maybe he can’t. 

“And maybe that part was true,” he says quietly. “But I also told myself it would make things easier.”

A faint tremor passes through the bunker again, this one lasts a little longer.

He finally lifts his gaze. “I thought if I chose that path… it would make it easier to stop loving you.”

The words land softly, almost fragile in the small room, but they hit just as hard as anything falling from the sky.

The lantern flickers again.

Jud lets out a quiet breath. “That was the lie I told myself,” he says.

Outside, somewhere very far away, something enormous tears through the atmosphere.

The ground shivers faintly again.

You turn your head slowly toward him and to your surprise you find no panic in his face.

Just honesty. The kind that only shows up when there’s nothing left to hide behind.

“You chose God,” you say softly.

His gaze doesn’t leave yours.

“I thought that meant I had to stop choosing you,” his voice cracks on the last syllable and your own eyes fill with tears that don’t fall yet. 

You lean back slightly against the wall, sniffling.

“Well,” you murmur.

Another tremor ripples through the earth above you.

“Good news, Jud.”

His brow lifts faintly.

You glance toward the ceiling instead.

“If the world ends tonight,” you say quietly, “that whole dilemma becomes extremely irrelevant.”

That earns the faintest ghost of a smile from him. The kind that barely moves his mouth but softens everything in his eyes.

The one that made you fall in love with him.

Another stronger impact shakes the bunker. Dust drifts slowly through the lantern light like pale snow.

You feel your hand move before you really think about it, your fingers slide across the small space between you and find his. His hand closes instinctively around yours and you lean against him, your head settling against his shoulder like it always used to, like your body remembers something the years never managed to erase.

Jud’s thumb moves once across the back of your hand. Absent, careful. The kind of touch that carries a thousand unsaid things.

Jud exhales slowly beside you.

“I love you,” he says.

The words come out simple. Unadorned. Like something he stopped trying to hide from a long time ago.

“Always have,” he adds quietly. “In case that wasn’t clear.”

A faint tremor runs through the floor beneath your feet.

“And if this is the end,” he murmurs, his voice softer now, “I’m glad I’m here with you.”

Your answer comes almost immediately. “Same.”

The word is muffled as you nuzzle your face into the warm curve of his neck, your nose brushing the warm skin there. For a second you simply stay like that, breathing him in, holding onto him like he’s the last solid thing left in a world that’s slowly breaking apart above you.

You lift your head slowly, your hand rising to his face. Your palm cups his cheek gently, thumb brushing the faint stubble there as you guide his head toward you.

Jud’s gentle eyes search yours for the briefest second.

Years ago he would have stepped back. Chosen restraint. Chosen the life he believed he was meant to live.

But now the world is ending. And when your lips meet his, he doesn’t hesitate.

He melts.

The kiss is soft at first like touching something fragile that was once lost and suddenly found again. Then something in him gives way completely. His hand slides up your arm, fingers curling against the back of your neck as he kisses you back with a quiet desperation that has been buried under years of silence and restraint.

Your forehead rests against his when the kiss finally breaks, your breath mingling in the small space between you.

Above the bunker, the largest fragment of the broken meteor finally reaches the earth.

The ground stills for a moment. A strange, suspended quiet like the world itself pausing between two heartbeats.

Then the light comes. Blinding and absolute.

It tears through sky and stone and earth alike, racing downward with a force too immense for the human mind to hold.

You tighten your arms around him instinctively, your face buried against his neck again as the noise outside rises into something deafening, something enormous and final.

Jud holds you just as tightly. And in that last fragile second — right before the light reaches you — the words slip from you almost without breath.

“I’m gonna find you in another life.”

They’re barely louder than a whisper, almost lost in the roar of the world breaking apart.

But you know he hears them, feel it as his arms tighten and his face is buried in your hair.

For a moment there is nothing.

No sound. No weight. No world.

And then air rushes into your lungs. A sharp, violent inhale like someone surfacing from deep water after staying under just a little too long.

The world returns slowly.

The distant rumble of a train moving through underground tunnels. The murmur of voices. The metallic screech of rails.

Then the movement. Your hand grips the cold metal pole inside a crowded subway car as the train lurches slightly along the tracks. Your body sways with it automatically, the way commuters learn to balance without thinking.

It’s warm. Busy. Ordinary.

People stand shoulder to shoulder, staring at phones, lost in their own thoughts. Outside the windows the tunnel rushes past in blurred streaks of dark concrete and flickering lights.

The train shudders suddenly with a small turbulence in the tracks.

Your shoulder bumps into someone beside you.

“Sorry,” you murmur automatically as you steady yourself.

But the word dies halfway out of your mouth.

Because when you look up you meet his eyes.

He’s holding the same pole as you, fingers wrapped just above yours. Close enough that your hands almost touch.

A stranger. At least that’s what your mind tells you. But the moment your eyes meet, something in your chest shifts with seismic intensity.

For a brief second, those eyes carry the same quiet weight as the ones you loved in a life you can’t quite remember anymore.

The subway keeps rattling forward. Neither of you looks away immediately.

And then you both smile. Small, instinctive.

Like two people sharing a quiet, inexplicable understanding neither of you could possibly explain in words.

And somewhere, deep in the quiet place where memories sleep, something in you already knows — you kept your promise. 

Thanks for reading 🩶

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Jud kept still for a long time after you disappeared between the trees. The clearing slowly returned to its usual quiet. The stream kept running. Leaves shifted softly in the branches above. But something inside him had shifted in a way that would not easily settle again.

He remained there a moment longer, his hand still half-raised as if some part of him had not yet understood that you were gone. Finally he exhaled and ran it over his face. Then he began the slow walk back toward the church.

The path felt different now.

The same dirt trail, the same branches brushing against his shoulders, the same soft crunch of leaves beneath his steps. And yet every few paces the memory of your mouth against his returned without warning, vivid and impossible to ignore. The warmth of it. The sound you made when he pulled you closer. The way your fingers had tangled in his hair.

He closed his eyes briefly.

“Lord…” he murmured under his breath. The word came out more like a tired breath than a prayer.

By the time he reached the church the light had begun to soften toward evening. The doors were open. Jud stepped inside. The air was cooler there, as always, heavy with the faint scent of old wood and candle wax. But there was something different this time.

Flowers. Fresh ones.

White arrangements had already been placed along the edges of the pews, tied with thin purple ribbons that stirred slightly whenever a breeze slipped through the open doors. At the altar, larger bouquets waited in tall vases, pale violet petals catching the fading light from the stained-glass windows.

Someone had been there earlier preparing everything for tomorrow. Preparing the church for your wedding.

Jud stood still for a moment in the doorway.

The stained-glass windows caught the lowering sun, scattering fragments of red and blue and gold across the stone floor. Some of that colour spilled over the white flowers, staining their petals briefly before the light shifted again.

He walked slowly down the nave. Not toward the office, but toward the altar. For a moment he simply stood there, hands resting lightly on the back of the first pew.

The decorations were simple, tasteful. Exactly the kind of ceremony you had said you wanted.

His gaze lingered briefly on the aisle. Tomorrow you would walk down that aisle. Toward another man.

The silence of the church wrapped around him like something patient. Waiting. Jud bowed his head. His lips parted as if to pray, trying to remember how to separate the man he had once been from the one he had promised to become.

And failing.

Nothing came. Not words. Not the familiar rhythm of the prayers he had repeated a thousand times before.

Instead there was only the memory of your voice.

Ask me not to marry him.

He let out a slow breath and sat down heavily on the pew. His fingers drifted almost unconsciously to his mouth, brushing lightly over his lower lip as if the warmth of the kiss might still be there.

“God help me,” he whispered.

Outside, somewhere beyond the church walls, the evening continued as it always had.

Inside, Jud Duplenticy sat alone in the quiet of the nave, surrounded by the preparations for a wedding he would have to perform. Wondering how he was supposed to stand at that altar tomorrow… and pretend his heart had not already broken.

***

That evening felt like something you moved through rather than lived. Voices filled the table. Laughter. Questions. Stories from Jake’s parents, warm and well-meaning. Your mother moving between them, attentive, proud, glowing with a happiness that felt almost untouchable.

Everything passed around you, but never quite reached you. Laughter came when it was expected. You smiled. You nodded. You answered when spoken to. But your mind…

Your mind kept returning to the clearing.

To the way Jud's voice had softened when he said your name. To the way your body had answered his without hesitation. To the kiss. It lingered in your body in a way that refused to fade. Not just a memory. A presence. Your lips still felt it. Your skin still held the echo of his touch as if something had been left behind beneath it.

And no matter how many times you tried to pull yourself back to the present, something in you refused to stay there.

When dinner finally ended, the relief came sharper than you expected. Saying goodnight to Jake felt… Wrong. He stood to leave with his family, already gathering keys and jackets. Your mother insisted again, half joking, half serious, that it was bad luck for him to see you on the morning of the wedding. He smiled, indulgent as always. When he stepped closer to you, his hand found yours easily.

“Get some rest, okay?” he said softly.

You nodded.

“I will.”

He leaned in and kissed you. Soft. Familiar. Careful. And then something inside you recoiled in a way you couldn’t control. Not outwardly. Not enough for him to notice. But you felt it. Felt the difference. Felt the absence.

And when he pulled away, smiling, unaware, the guilt that followed hit harder because that kiss had felt more like a betrayal than what had happened in the woods.

And you couldn’t explain why. Or maybe you were afraid to do it.

You watched him walk away with his family, toward the small inn at the edge of town, your mother’s voice echoing in your mind about bad luck and tradition. It felt almost like relief when the door finally closed behind them.

“Get some rest,” your mother said, already gathering plates. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

You just nodded.

She smiled, soft and emotional, brushing a hand against your cheek. “My beautiful girl.”

You forced a smile and went upstairs before she could say anything else. Your room welcomed you with the same quiet it always had. The same faint smell of wood and time. You closed the door and leaned against it for a moment.

Your heart was still beating too fast. Not from nerves. Not from tomorrow. But from him.

You crossed the room slowly and sat at your desk. The paper in front of you remained almost blank.

Your vows.

You had been trying to write them for days now. Weeks, even. Words had always come easily to you. They had always been yours to shape, to bend, to place exactly where they needed to be.

But this… This had resisted you. Because every time you tried to begin, something felt… false. Or incomplete. Or like you were writing around something instead of through it.

Your fingers moved to the drawer almost without thinking and opened it. The old diary was exactly where you had left it. You had found it a few days ago and started reading without really knowing why. At first it had felt like curiosity. Nostalgia.

Now it felt like something else entirely.

You opened it carefully, the worn cover soft beneath your fingertips. Pages filled with careful handwriting. Little drawings in the margins, dragonflies, over and over again. And there… a clumsy little figure, arms too long, standing inside a badly drawn heart.

You let out a quiet breath. The signs had always been there. You just hadn’t known how to read them. Not then. Maybe not even until today.

You turned to one of the last blank pages. The pen hovered for a moment. Then, slowly… you began to write.

I don’t know if these are the words I’m supposed to say.

Or if they’re the ones I was meant to keep to myself.

But if I’ve learned anything… it’s that some truths don’t disappear just because we choose not to speak them.

You paused. Your hand trembled slightly before continuing.

Knowing you was the best thing that could have happened to me. What happened today, in the clearing, in our clearing, was the most beautiful kind of mistake.

The kind you don’t regret, even when you should.

Because something in me has always known that whoever I became…

I would never quite exist without you.

Your throat tightened.

I tried to grow without you.

I built a life. I learned how to be someone else. I have tried, for years, to convince myself that you were just a memory. Something small. Something finished.

But you never were.

There was always a part of me that still looked for you in the quiet.

You were the calm voice I carried with me when things felt too heavy.

The place I returned to when I didn’t know where else to go.

The version of myself that had felt seen.

You swallowed hard.

If loving you is a sin, then it is the best one I’ve ever committed.

Even if no one else ever knows.

Even if it only ever exists between you, me… and whatever it is that watches over the things we never say out loud.

Your pen slowed.

Maybe that’s the punishment for this I feel. To carry something this bright… and never be allowed to call it yours.

The ink pooled slightly where the pen lingered.

But if that’s the price… then I would still choose it.

I would still choose you.

And nothing would make me happier than you chose me back.

You stopped. The room was completely silent.

Your chest rose and fell unevenly, as if you had just run a long distance instead of sitting perfectly still.

The words stared back at you from the page.

Too honest.

Too real.

Too late.

And not meant for the man waiting for you at the end of the aisle tomorrow.

***

Morning arrived too quickly. You hadn’t slept. Not really. You had drifted in and out of a shallow, restless haze, waking every time the memory of Jud’s mouth returned. Warm, urgent, nothing like a goodbye. At some point near dawn you had given up, lying still in the dark with the dragonfly charm clutched tightly in your fist.

Now the house was alive with voices and movement downstairs. Your mother’s nervous laughter. The clatter of plates. Someone adjusting chairs. Life moving forward whether you were ready or not.

You sat on the edge of the bed in your robe, staring at the dress hanging on the wardrobe door like it belonged to someone else. White silk and lace. Beautiful. Final.

Today was the day.

The words settled heavily in your chest.

A soft knock sounded.

“Sweetheart? It’s time.”

You closed your eyes for one last second and finally stood up. 

The hours that followed passed in a blur of hands and voices. Your hair was brushed, pinned, curled. Makeup applied with careful brushes. Someone laughed about how perfect everything looked. You smiled when they told you to. You tilted your head when asked. You stood when they needed you to stand.

When they finally slid the dress over your shoulders and began fastening the long row of tiny buttons down your back, you felt strangely detached, as if you were watching it happen to another woman.

Your mother stepped back once the last button was done.

“Oh my God…” Her voice broke. She pressed both hands to her mouth, eyes already wet. “You look… perfect.”

You turned toward the mirror. The woman staring back at you was stunning. Elegant, serene, the kind of bride little girls imagine becoming.

And yet you felt like an impostor wearing someone else’s happiness.

Your mother came closer, adjusting the veil with trembling fingers, eyes shining.

“My beautiful girl.” Emotion thickened her voice suddenly. She laughed through it, embarrassed by her own tears. “Your father would’ve completely fallen apart if he could see you now.”

Something tightened painfully in your chest.

Then, after a moment, her expression shifted with sudden determination, as if remembering something important.

“Alright,” she murmured, brushing quickly beneath her eyes. “Tradition.”

You blinked faintly. “What?”

“Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue. Remember?”

She lifted one finger dramatically.

“Something old…” She touched the pearl necklace resting against your throat. “Your grandmother’s necklace. I wore it on my wedding day too.”

Your gaze lowered briefly to the delicate tiny pearls. 

A second finger.

“Something borrowed…” She smiled softly. “My veil.”

The delicate fabric trembled faintly where it fell behind your shoulders.

A third finger lifted.

“Something new…” Her hand smoothed lovingly over the fabric of your dress. “That one’s obvious.”

A small silence followed. 

“And…” Then suddenly your mother froze. “Oh God.”

You frowned slightly. “What?”

“We forgot something blue.”

For a moment neither of you spoke. Then your fingers moved instinctively toward the inside of your dress, just beneath the left side of your bodice, where the tiny safety pin rested hidden beneath the fabric.

The dragonfly pressed lightly against your skin.

Small. Worn. Blue. Right above your heart. A quiet warmth spread through your chest at the feeling of it there. Something inside you eased just slightly.

“It’s okay,” you said softly. “I already have something.” 

Your mother let out a relieved breath immediately.

“Oh thank God,” she laughed weakly. “For a second I thought we’d cursed the whole marriage.”

You forced a smile, but your fingers lingered one second longer against the hidden shape beneath the fabric before letting go.

As if reassuring yourself that it was still there.

As if some part of him was too.

A secret. A sin. A promise no one else would ever know.

For the first time that morning, your eyes filled with tears. Your mother mistook them for emotion about the wedding.

“Oh, sweetheart…” she whispered, pulling you into a gentle hug, careful not to ruin your makeup. “It’s normal to feel overwhelmed. This is a big day.”

You closed your eyes and let her hold you, breathing in her familiar perfume.

“Yes,” you whispered against her shoulder. “It’s a very big day.”

Thanks for reading~💜

Taglist: @quietly-kept @sidelit @yyiikes @dumb-blondeee