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The glow of your phone screen is the only light in your dark apartment. It casts a harsh, blue tint over your face, illuminating the dried tear tracks on your cheeks and the dark circles bruising the skin beneath your eyes. Your thumb hovers over the screen, trembling slightly, before swiping to the next photo. And the next. And the next.
It’s April’s private social media account.
You shouldn’t be looking at it. You know you shouldn’t. Everyone has told you—April, Donnie, even Mikey with his soft, empathetic eyes—that you need to stop. That you need to let him go. But how can you? How are you supposed to just pack up months of memories, late-night rooftop runs, and whispered promises in the dark, and lock them away?
The photo on your screen features the whole Hamato clan crammed into a booth at Run of the Mill Pizza. Raph is in the back, laughing around a massive slice. Mikey is making bunny ears behind Donnie’s head. And there, in the corner of the booth, is Leo.
Your Leo.
Except he isn’t yours anymore.
He is smiling that brilliant, cocky, effortless smile that used to make your heart hammer against your ribs. The red stripes over his eyes crinkle with genuine joy. But he isn’t looking at the camera. He’s looking down at her.
The new girl.
She has her head thrown back in a laugh, her hand resting casually on his plastron, right over the faint, jagged scar left behind from the Krang invasion. It’s a spot he used to let only you touch. You remember the way his breath would hitch when you traced those raised, pale lines, the way he would lean into your palm and close his eyes.
Now, this stranger is touching him like she owns him.
Like she earned the right to be there.
You zoom in on the picture. Your chest caves in, a sickening, hollow ache radiating through your ribs as your eyes lock onto Leo’s hand—which is resting firmly, possessively, on her waist.
Now she’s the one with your hands on her waist, and I’m left with memories I can’t erase.
You drop the phone onto your mattress as if it burned you. The device lands with a dull thud, the screen timing out and plunging you into darkness. You pull your knees up to your chest, burying your face in your arms, trying to block out the image. But it’s burned into the backs of your eyelids.
You know the exact weight of that hand. You know the texture of his scales, and the comforting warmth that radiated from him despite his cold-blooded mutation. You know how those calloused fingers felt when they wrapped around your own, how his thumb would gently stroke your hipbone when you lay together in his messy subway car bedroom.
Does she get lost in your touch like I do?
The thought is a poisonous whisper in your mind, wrapping around your brain like thorny vines. Does this new girl understand the privilege of his touch? Does she feel the electric jolt of his ninpo sparking beneath his skin when he pulls her close? Does she close her eyes and let the rest of the world melt away, utterly consumed by the sensation of him?
Does she love the way it feels?
You push yourself off the bed. The silence of your apartment is suffocating. The air is stagnant, heavy with the ghosts of your past. He used to portal into this very room. A flash of blinding blue light, and he would step out of it with a confident smirk. “Hey, hermosa,” he would say, his voice smooth. “Miss me?”
You pace the length of your bedroom. The urge to see him is a physical itch beneath your skin, a withdrawal symptom that makes your hands shake and your stomach turn. It’s Friday night. You know exactly where they are. You shouldn’t go. It’s a violation of the unspoken boundary drawn the day he quietly and gently broke your heart. But the obsession is a living thing inside you, steering your body when your rational mind begs you to stop.
You throw on a dark hoodie, pull the strings tight, and head out into the streets of New York City.
The mystic doorway to the restaurant is located in an alley that smells of old garbage. You press your hand against the shimmering brickwork covered in graffiti, then step through. The air instantly shifts, becoming laced with the scent of pizza.
You can’t risk Señor Hueso spotting you and making a scene. Instead, you slip behind one of the booths. It’s pathetic. You know it’s pathetic. You are creeping through the shadows, a desperate ghost haunting the life of a man who doesn’t want you anymore. But you can’t stop yourself.
The restaurant is bustling with yokai of all shapes and sizes, but your eyes zero in on the booth in the back.
There they are.
It’s just the two of them now. The brothers must have left. Leo is leaning across the table, his elbows resting on the wood. He is talking, his hands moving in those sweeping, dramatic gestures you know so well. The lights of the restaurant catch the blue fabric of his mask, highlighting the sharp, mature line of his jaw. He looks so handsome it physically hurts.
And then he looks at her.
He stops talking. His arrogant, playful demeanor melts away in a fraction of a second, replaced by a look of such profound, tender sincerity that you have to bite your lip to keep from crying out. His eyes are soft, filled with a quiet, undeniable adoration.
And does she know when she looks in your eyes that you’re the one for real?
When you were together, he looked at you like that. Not often—Leo was always hiding behind jokes and bravado—but in the quiet moments, when the world stopped spinning, he would look at you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. You knew, in those moments, that he was the one. You felt it in the very marrow of your bones. Does she know?
Does this girl sitting across from him realize that beneath the jokes and the flashy portals, there is a warrior with a heart so vast and fiercely loyal it could swallow her whole?
You watch as the girl smiles, reaching across the table to take his hand. She weaves her fingers through his three green ones.
Leo’s face breaks into a soft, breathtaking smile.
You scramble back, your chest heaving as if you’ve run a marathon. The air is suddenly too thick to breathe.
You leave as discreetly as you can, heading back through the entry portal and bursting into the cool night air of the New York alley. You lean against the wall, chest heaving.
You are drowning in the past, choked by the memories you can’t erase.
You remember the night you broke up.
He had looked so tired, the weight of his newfound leadership and his lingering trauma was fracturing the foundation of your relationship. “I can’t give you what you need right now,” he had whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m broken, and I keep cutting you on my sharp edges. I have to let you go.”
You didn’t want to let go. You would have bled for him. You did bleed for him. But he had already made up his mind, slipping away from you like water through a sieve.
Suddenly, the brickwork shimmers. You bolt around the corner into the shadows just as Leo and Mina step through. Ducking out of sight, you listen to the low murmur of their conversation as they pass—they’re heading to the nearby park for a walk. A romantic, late-night stroll.
Your legs move on their own. You follow them, keeping your distance, darting from cover to cover. You are a shadow. A stalker in the night. They walk close together, their arms brushing. When you reach the park, the girl trips over an exposed root, losing her footing. She stumbles forward with a gasp.
Instantly, Leo’s arm shoots out, catching her around the waist before she can hit the ground. He pulls her flush against his plastron, his reflexes impossibly fast. She lets out a startled, breathless laugh, her hands gripping his muscular arms.
“I’ve gotcha,” Leo murmurs, his voice low with that protective edge you used to crave.
“Leo!” she gasps, her voice a mix of surprise and delight. She looks up at him, her eyes wide, entirely captivated by his strength and proximity. She says his name like a prayer. Like a lifeline.
Does she make you forget where you are when she’s screaming out your name?
The memory hits you with the force of a freight train. A memory so intimate, so intensely private, that you have to squeeze your eyes shut to bear it.
The night in his subway car. The blue fairy lights cast an ethereal glow over tangled sheets. The feeling of his body moving with yours, his hands holding you down, his breath hot against your neck. You remember the way you moaned his name, your voice breaking, completely lost in the overwhelming tide of his touch. In those moments, the world didn’t exist.
There was no Krang, no Foot Clan, no impending doom.
Just you and him, perfectly synchronized.
You open your eyes, tears blurring your vision. Leo is still holding her. He leans down, burying his face in the crook of her neck. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can see the way her eyes flutter shut, the way a soft, ecstatic smile spreads across her lips.
Do you still whisper the same words to her, or did you save those just for me?
What is he telling her? Is he calling her his princesa? Is he telling her that her eyes are brighter than the mystic lights of his portals? Is he whispering the secret, terrified insecurities he used to confess to you in the dead of night?
The thought that he is recycling the words that once felt so exclusively, sacredly yours makes bile rise in your throat. You want to scream. You want to run out from behind the tree, grab her by the shoulders, and violently shake her.
So how’s she supposed to know that I love you?
You look at this girl, this oblivious, happy girl. She doesn’t know you exist, or if she does, you are just a footnote in Leo’s history. The ex. A bump in the road leading up to her. Every time Leo smiles at her, every time he pulls her close and says, “I love you,” you lose another piece of your soul. It’s a competition she doesn’t even know she’s winning, and you are being slaughtered on the battlefield.
‘Cause every time you say you love her, I lose.
Your foot shifts. The heel of your sneaker snaps a brittle, fallen branch.
The sound echoes in the quiet park like a gunshot.
Leo freezes. His head snaps up, his combat instincts instantly overriding his romantic haze. His eyes scan the treeline, narrowing with razor-sharp precision. He pushes the girl slightly behind him, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilts of his katanas strapped to his back.
“Who’s there?” he demands, his voice hard and authoritative. The voice of a leader.
Panic seizes your chest. You shrink back, pressing your spine against the trunk of the tree, holding your breath until your lungs burn. Please, you pray to whatever gods are listening. Please don’t let him see me.
“Leo? What is it?” the girl asks, her voice trembling slightly.
“Stay here,” he orders quietly.
You hear the soft, deliberate crunch of his footsteps approaching your hiding spot. You have nowhere to run. The park is too open, and a portal would catch you before you could make it half a dozen feet.
His footsteps stop right on the other side of the tree.
“I know you’re there,” Leo says. His voice is quieter now, but it carries a strange, tight tension. “Step out.”
You close your eyes. Humiliation burns hot and bright in your cheeks. Slowly, with trembling limbs, you step out from the shadows of the tree.
Leo stands ten feet away. He relaxes his grip, letting the half-drawn blade slide back into its sheath with a soft click. The fierce, protective scowl on his face evaporates, replaced by a look of pure shock, his eyes widening. He murmurs your name. The sound of it on his lips is a punch to the gut.
It has been months since you heard him say it.
“Hi, Leo,” you whisper, your voice hoarse. You wrap your arms around your torso, trying to make yourself as small as possible.
The girl steps out from behind him, peering around his broad shoulder. She has pretty, kind eyes and a soft face. She looks confused, her gaze darting between your tear-stained face and Leo’s rigid posture. “Leo? Who is this?”
How’s she supposed to know how much I do? ‘Cause I would do anything to be in her shoes.
You stare at the girl’s shoes. Cute, stylish little boots. You would trade everything—your dignity, your sanity, your life—to step into those boots, to be the one standing behind him, protected by him, loved by him.
Leo turns his head slightly, his expression softening as he looks at the girl. “Hey, Mina,” he says gently. “Can you … can you give us a second? Just wait by the fountain?”
Mina looks at you again, a dawning realization flashing in her eyes. “Oh. Okay. Sure.” She gives Leo a quick, reassuring squeeze on the arm before walking away, leaving the two of you alone.
He turns back to you. The silence stretches between you, thick and agonizing. He doesn’t look angry. If he looked angry, it would be easier. You could fight him. You could scream at him. But he doesn’t look angry.
He looks overwhelmingly, unbearably sad.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. The pity in his eyes is a knife twisting in your gut.
“I don’t know,” you choke out, tears finally spilling over your lashes. “I don’t know, Leo. I couldn’t … I just couldn’t stay in my apartment.”
He lets out a long, shuddering sigh. “You’re following us.” He rubs a hand over his face, looking suddenly exhausted. “You’ve been following us since Run of the Mill, haven’t you?”
You don’t answer. You just stare at the crack in his plastron, the one you used to trace with your lips.
“You have to stop doing this to yourself,” he pleads, taking a half-step forward before stopping himself. The fact that he stops, that he deliberately restricts himself from closing the distance, breaks you entirely. He won’t even comfort you. He belongs to someone else.
“How do you do it?” you sob, the dam finally breaking. The words tear from your throat, raw and jagged. “How do you just walk away? How do you look at her like that, when just a few months ago, you were looking at me?”
Leo flinches as if you struck him.
“Do you say the same things to her?” you demand, stepping toward him, fueled by a hysterical, desperate energy. “Do you call her the same names? Do you touch her the way you touched me?”
“Stop,” he says, his voice cracking. He holds a hand up, a barrier between you. “Please, don’t do this.”
“How does it feel to let go?!” you scream. “Tell me, Leo! Tell me how it feels, because I don’t think I’ll ever know! I’m dying inside, and you are just … you’re just fine!”
Leo closes the distance then, grabbing your shoulders. His large hands grip you tightly, grounding you as you shake and sob. The contact sends a violent shockwave through your nervous system. His hands. His beautiful, strong hands are on you again, but it’s entirely wrong. There is no passion. Only desperation and pity.
“Listen to me,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. He ducks his head to force you to meet his eyes. “I am not ‘fine’. Breaking up with you broke my heart. But we were destroying each other. You know we were. You were giving me everything, and I had nothing left to give back. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“I don’t care about fair!” you cry, trying to bury your face in his chest, but he holds you back at arm’s length. “I just want you! I want your hands around my waist. I want to wake up next to you. I want to erase her from your life.”
Leo’s eyes harden slightly, a flash of protectiveness for Mina cutting through his grief. And that micro-expression is the most devastating thing you’ve seen all night. “You don’t mean that. Mina has nothing to do with this. She’s a good person. And she makes me … she makes me feel quiet. Inside my head. It’s quiet with her.”
You stare at him, the breath knocked out of you.
With you, it was loud. That’s the unspoken sentence hanging in the air between you. Your love was obsessive, intense, a raging hurricane of emotion that demanded all of him. And Leo, broken, traumatized, exhausted Leo, didn’t need a hurricane. He needed a gentle breeze.
He needed Mina.
“How is she supposed to know?” you whisper, your voice cracking into nothingness. You look past his shoulder, toward the fountain where Mina is waiting patiently, scrolling on her phone. “How is she supposed to know that I still love you? How is she supposed to know that every time you tell her you love her, I lose everything all over again?”
Leo’s grip on your shoulders softens. His thumbs brush against your collarbones, a phantom echo of the tenderness he used to give you so freely. “She doesn’t need to know,” he says softly. “Because this isn’t about her. This is about you. You have to let me go. You have to find someone who gives you the quiet you deserve, too.”
“I don’t want quiet,” you whisper, tears tracking steadily down your cheeks. “I want you.”
He drops his hands from your shoulders. The sudden loss of his touch leaves you freezing cold. You shiver, wrapping your arms around yourself.
“I have to go,” Leo says quietly. Then he gives you one last, lingering look—a look filled with sorrow, guilt, and a final sense of closure. At least for him. “Don’t follow us. Please. For your own sake.”
He slices his swords in a wide arc, and the air tears open with a flash of blue light. He steps backward toward the fountain where Mina is waiting. You watch as she looks up, flashing him a bright, uncomplicated smile. She takes his hand again. Leo doesn’t look back at you as they step through the portal together.
It shrinks and collapses.
You are entirely alone.
You sink to the ground, the damp grass soaking through your jeans. The silence of the park is deafening, just like your apartment. You pull your knees to your chest, resting your forehead against them. The memories are rushing in, a relentless, suffocating tide.
You remember the way his blue mask tails would flutter in the wind when you stood on the edge of a skyscraper. You remember the rumble of his chest when he laughed at his own terrible joke. You remember the exact, precise pressure of his hands resting on your waist, pulling you into him.
And does she love the way it feels?
Does Mina know the treasure she holds in her hands? When she lies next to him tonight, when he whispers her name into the dark, will she understand the miracle of his love?
You press your hands over your ears, trying to block out the voices in your head, trying to erase the images of them together. But it’s impossible. The obsession is a parasite, feeding on your grief, keeping him alive in your mind even as he walks away in reality.
How does it feel to let go?
You look up at the canopy of the tree above you, the tears finally stopping, leaving behind a hollow ache in your chest that you know will never leave.
I don’t think I’ll ever know.