The days that followed felt hollow.
Liam had stopped texting. Stopped waiting for her after class. He was hurt, clearly. And Elena felt the sting of that rejection too—though she had been the one to turn him down. She hadn't meant to lose him entirely. But she had.
She walked the same paths every day—through campus, past the empty corners of the art building, across the overgrown parking lot behind her dorm. Places where she used to feel someone watching. Places where she used to feel… him.
Now? There was nothing. Not even the flicker of a shadow. No leather coat vanishing around a corner. No strange envelope in her mailbox. No pulse of nervous awareness in her chest.
Luca Romano had disappeared.
And she hated how much she missed him.
Elena didn't know why it made her heart ache. He was never truly there to begin with, not in the way people are supposed to be. He had haunted her life more than lived in it. A phantom in the alley. A name she never really spoke. A silence that wrapped around her like an embrace she never admitted she wanted.
She'd begun questioning herself. Was it all in her head? Had he finally let go of whatever obsession he had with her? Had she imagined the intensity of his gaze? The feeling that she was claimed without being touched?
She couldn't say.
But the void he left behind was real.
So, she filled her time with school, pretending to study when she couldn't focus. Pretending to sleep when her mind raced. Pretending to eat when food felt like ash in her mouth.
On a cloudy Wednesday, she walked into her room and dropped her bag by the door. The sound echoed strangely.
Her birthday had passed days ago. Quiet. Uneventful. She hadn't told anyone. Not even Liam.
She glanced at her desk and froze.
There was something there. A single black velvet box.
Her heartbeat skidded.
She looked around the room, but the door had been locked. The window too. She stepped closer, slowly, like the box might disappear if she blinked too fast.
Inside was a necklace—silver, delicate. The pendant was a thin crescent moon holding a small opal in its curve. A note was tucked beneath it, handwritten in bold, sharp strokes:
"I know you'll hate me for this distance. But it's the only way to keep you safe. — L."
Her throat tightened.
It was him.
He hadn't left completely.
He was still watching.
Still close enough to leave this without her knowing.
Her fingers trembled as she lifted the necklace. She didn't put it on. She didn't throw it away either. Instead, she sat on the edge of her bed and held it in her lap for a long time, her mind a blur of confusion and pain and something else she couldn't name.
Relief?
She hated that part the most.
He wasn't a boyfriend. He wasn't even a friend. He was… something else. And somehow, even after his silence, his distance, she still wanted something from him.
Closure, maybe.
Or answers.
Or just him.
That night, Elena stood by her window long after the lights had gone out. She watched the street below for signs of movement. But no shadows moved. No cars idled.
Just darkness.
Still, she whispered into it, barely loud enough for even herself to hear.
"Are you still there?"
The silence answered.
But so did the wind that moved faintly against her window, like breath.
And somewhere, in that silence, Luca Romano watched. From a place she could not see.
His jaw was set.
He hadn't wanted to leave the gift. He couldn't bear the thought of her feeling forgotten. Not by him.
He had one rule: protect her at all costs. Even if that meant breaking his own heart.