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Reflecting back on his life, John really has just one big regret. He never got to tell Seraphina that he did, truly love her.
But it was too late for that now. The two of them had gone their separate ways years ago. They hadn’t seen each other since John moved out of the apartment they shared and never looked back.
He never wanted to, but he had to. He couldn’t stand to stay there with her any longer.
It all boiled down to the fact that despite constantly saying that he was fine about Seraphina not reciprocating his feelings and willing to see her be with someone else, he wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of her being with someone that wasn’t him.
John saw hints of it here and there, but when they were at their 10 year high school reunion, he saw it clear as day. There was a guy casually flirting with her. He was relatively short, and wearing a white tuxedo and a big grin on his face. He had crystal blue eyes and blonde bangs falling down his forehead with blue hair in the back.
Even worse, Seraphina was clearly laughing with him. She looked so comfortable being in his presence that John’s heart broke. Seraphina was his best friend, but every now and then, he would always see how much their friendship strained her, as though it was tiring to be friends with him. John had never seen her so relaxed around another person. And he just knew, he was holding her back.
It wasn’t fair to either of them that they were soulmates and weren’t together. Even if they weren’t actually together, the fact that they were supposedly destined to be together would sour any attempts of a relationship the other had.
A girl with short neon green hair and orange eyes walked up to him, carrying a cup filled with punch. Her attention was on the same two people John was focusing on. And if he were paying any attention he would have seen the loving gaze in her eyes as they looked at the smiling man. If he looked in her general direction he would have noticed the shining rock on her finger that she twisted. “He is such a sap, isn’t he?”
“You know him?” John asked.
“We practically grew up together,” the girl grinned. She sighed wistfully. “He’s the most amazing person I know. And he’s got a bright future ahead of him. He’s studying to become an engineer. You know, he built his own motorcycle?”
It would have been easier if the guy was a jerk or had some kind of flaw. But no, this guy seemed like a genuinely good guy. He probably never terrorized his own school. Twice. John was sure he had them, but they were probably completely insignificant little idiosyncrasies that nobody was bothered by. Like he talked too loud or maybe a little touchy feely. Seraphina deserved someone like that. Someone that was just good and decent. And John could never be that for her.
It wasn’t even a week later that John had packed all his bags and was prepared to move out.
“I don’t understand. Why do you need to go away?” Seraphina asked, desperately.
“I can’t stay here anymore, Sera. This was never a permanent situation. You knew that. We both did. It’s just time to move on,” John swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn’t want to move, but he didn’t have a choice. If he stayed, he would be stuck here forever, even after Seraphina was long gone, clinging to dreams of what could have been.
“Please John, you don’t have to do this. I’m happy for you to stay as long as you want. There’s no reason for you to go,” Seraphina refused to cry, that would just be pathetic. In the back of her mind, she always thought that eventually she would be able to break through John’s exterior and make him stay with her, even if it wasn’t in a romantic sense. She didn’t realize she had already run out of time.
John could tell Seraphina was close to tears. And for a moment, he thought of taking it all back. That he would stay here with her for as long as she let him. He would be there for her through everything because he loves her and she is everything to him.
But that thought scared him more than encouraged him. Because for her, he was just the pathetic soulmate that she took pity on. The one who had no one else other than her, so she let him stay with her until he got back on his feet.
The fact was, he didn’t mean as much to her as she does to him. And for that reason alone, he couldn’t stay. If he did, soon Seraphina would consume every thought. His life would revolve around her. She was already the most important person in his life, and if he stayed, she would be the only part of his life. And when she would inevitably leave, John would be left with nothing. He would be nothing.
John shook his head. “I can’t. I need to leave. I need to go away. From you,” John didn’t know who he was without Seraphina. For so long, she meant everything to him. He needed to find out who he was without Sera. And it would be better to do it on his own terms.
That last sentence broke Seraphina’s heart. There it was. Plain and simple. John didn’t want to be with her. Could it be? He did actually know about her feelings for him. And now, he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was leaving because of her, because she made him feel uncomfortable. She drove him away.
“We’ll still talk, right?” Seraphina asked, desperate to salvage the situation, to have any sort of relationship with John.
John paused. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t be here with you anymore. It’s not fair to either of us, that we keep living together like this. That’s why I have to go,”
The knife just kept driving deeper into her heart. “I’ll miss you,”
John stared at her for a moment before he slung his final bag over his shoulder and walked out the door without a word.
Seraphina stood in the silence for a second, waiting to see if John would return. When it was apparent that he was gone and not coming back, that’s when the dam burst. Seraphina fell to the floor, cradling herself, bawling her eyes out. Wondering how everything could have gone wrong. Everything seemed perfect for a while. How could it have led to this?
2 Years Later
Larissa was great. She was great. She was kind, funny and outgoing. She was supportive and didn’t judge him for his past. John could be completely honest with her about anything and she was honest in turn.
She had red and yellow hair that made it look like it was constantly on fire. Her eyes were midnight blue that almost made them look black. Her ability was being an empath. She could feel John’s emotions and help him work through them. That definitely helped whenever John was having a restless night being plagued with feelings of his past.
So Larissa was great. She was perfect really. Larissa understood him better than anyone, and she knew about his soulmate situation. That he was rejected by her because of his past. Because of his mistakes.
Larissa never held it against him and helped him work through his issues. She was there for him, every step of the way.
John does love her. That’s why he asked to marry her. And he’s pretty sure she loves him too. That’s why she said yes. There was respect and they both cared for each other very much, which according to Larissa is the most important part of any relationship. It was better than most other relationships anyway. But it was unspoken that neither of them were in love with each other.
For the past few months, that is John’s life. He wakes up to his wonderful fiance, they exchange pleasantries and go about their day. At night, they would eat dinner together, discuss their day, before falling to bed together.
They never plan to have kids. John doesn’t trust himself to have kids, not that he would be abusive, but he has such a low opinion of himself that he thinks the world would be better off without another him. Larissa is fine with that. She never saw herself as a mother. No reason, she just never had the desire to bear a child.
They’re happy together. John loves his life. And he can’t wait to get married to this woman that he loves and cares for.
But first he has his mom’s birthday party to get through before he does.
Seraphina’s life has been a mess since John walked out of it. She’s been in a constant state of depression because she is just wracked with guilt and regret.
It’s why none of her relationships have worked out. Because John is just always in the back of her mind, the one that got away. But it’s not entirely her fault. A lot of her exes were pigs who just wanted to have a god-tier as a girlfriend.
Not this guy though. He’s a normal guy, if a bit boring. His name is Venit with the ability to ‘temporarily manipulate the effect of magnetism in his immediate area to enable levitation’. No matter how he puts it, it’s just flying.
Sera was set up with him by her sister, he’s a new intern at her firm and after a string of bad relationships, Sera has just let Leilah do all the work in finding her a date.
They’re at a cafe and Sera’s got her head resting in her left hand as she struggles to listen to her date talk about his work. It’s not that she doesn’t understand what he’s saying, she probably understands it better than he does, it’s just that it feels like it’s all he talks about.
“...ifesting solid mass for up to four hours. In other words, we’re on the cusp of a breakthrough. But what about you? How’s your day been?” Venit finally ends his rant and looks at her with an expectant grin.
For a moment, Seraphina didn’t know how to respond. She studied Venit with a critical eye. This was their third date and already she was grasping for an excuse to get out of here and never having to talk to him again.
It wasn’t fair to him, she knew. The guy had done nothing wrong, he was perfectly polite. But there was just no life to him, no passion. There was no spark behind his eyes that she’d seen so often with him. She was hopeless.
In another life, Venit could have been one of her other soul connections, but it just wasn’t this one.
She was back in her apartment later that evening, taking a shower. She’d officially declared to Venit that she didn’t have any intention to date him anymore. He let out a surprised ‘Oh’, but accepted it with open arms.
Wrapping herself in a towel, she looked at herself in the mirror and carefully studied the golden 9.6 emblazoned on her chest.
Not for the first time, she found her thoughts drifting to her supposed soulmate. What were they like? What were they doing? Has she ever met them? Did they ever think about her? Could she be happy with them?
Maybe it would be worth it to look…?
No. Sera shook her head of those thoughts. Images of John flashed through her head, of the dignity he held when he knew his own soulmate had perished before he had a chance to meet them. The one who convinced her that soulmates didn’t matter.
Sera stared at herself in the mirror. She was pathetic, thinking that running away to her soulmate, a virtual stranger, was going to solve all her problems. No, what she needed was John. She needed to talk to him, just once. Whether it be 30 years or 30 seconds, she just needs to see him again some way.
And looking at a birthday invitation on her table that Sera knew John was going to be attending, she knew just how to make it happen.
Seraphina showed up at Jane’s house over an hour early to the party. She was so early that Jane and Cameron hadn’t finished setting up yet and she offered her help with getting everything ready.
“It’s so nice to see you, Seraphina. It’s been a long time,” Jane greeted her with a smile.
“Hmph,” Cameron grunted and nodded in her general direction before pouring himself another glass of wine.
“It’s great to see you too, Jane. And happy birthday. Cameron, always a pleasure,” Seraphina said with a smirk on her face.
“Thank you Seraphina. You know, I was pretty surprised to see you. Neither of us has heard from you for some time,” Jane said.
“Not since John moved out of your apartment a couple years ago,” Cameron commented while swishing the wine in his glass.
“Umm,” Sera mumbled, turning away from them by setting a few plastic plates out to hide her blushing face.
“You wouldn’t happen to be hoping to see my son, would you?” Jane said with a teasing lilt to her voice.
“We were roommates for a long time. Is it so weird to want to catch up a little?” Sera said in a rush, dipping her head down to try to control the heat on her face.
“Right, roommates,” Cameron rolled his eyes at her.
“I still don’t understand why you and John split up. You seemed like such the perfect couple,” Jane pouted at her.
Okay, Sera’s face was never going to cool down at this rate. “John and I were never together. We were best friends and we lived together for a time. That’s all.”
The two white haired siblings shared a look of confusion and doubt. There was no way.
Before they could question Seraphina more, the guests started to arrive. There were some Sera recognized and others she didn’t. Some of her classmates showed up and soon she was surrounded by her old friends.
Someone made a comment about the cake. Or more precisely, the lack of a cake. “Oh, my son is coming with the cake. He made it himself. He should be here soon.” Jane responded.
As though summoned, the doorbell rang. Jane scurried to the door and opened it, revealing John in all his glory.
Seraphina caught a glimpse of him and felt herself freeze. The world paused with this single second lasting an eternity. There he was. Somehow looking even better than she remembered. He must have grown a couple inches and had a bit of stubble on his chin, giving him a rugged look. His clothes were casual and form fitting, leaving nothing to the imagination.
There was a smile on his face as he gazed upon his mother and brought her in for an embrace. Even when it wasn’t directed at her, that smile stole Seraphina’s breath away. Her knees felt weak and her heart was beating so loudly, she was sure it sounded like a train engine.
Remi was her favourite person right now because unlike the rest of her supposed friends, she had the decency to nudge Seraphina awake from her trance and tell her “You’re drooling.”
Seraphina was quick to close her mouth and wipe away the saliva on her chin. She was not going to have her first meeting with John in years be one with drool all over her face.
“John, what in the world?” Jane exclaimed when John turned back out the door, but there was still a smile on her face and a hint of a laugh in her voice.
“Well, I didn’t know what kind of cake you wanted or how many people were gonna be here, so I just made a bunch. Happy birthday, Mom.” John's voice came out as he dragged a large food cart with half a dozen cakes displayed.
Oh, his voice still stirred up every hidden desire she’d kept locked up for the past years and he still wasn’t even talking to her. This was so unfair.
“And who is that?” Cameron’s question rang out and briefly distracted Seraphina from John’s visage to see a woman with red and yellow hair wearing strapless brown dress trailing behind John, helping him push the food cart inside.
“Mom, Uncle Cameron, this is Larissa.” John introduced the tramp with his arm around her shoulder and a smile on his face. “My fiance.”
There was a deafening silence ringing in her ears. Was the room spinning? She felt like she was going to be sick. The grip on her cup slackened and fell to the ground, spilling its contents all over the floor.
This… this was a joke, right? The punch was spiked? This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening.
Sera’s heart stopped. It was gone, ripped out of her chest. Never to be seen again. Why was there no air in here? She couldn’t breathe!
She… she was too late.
She wanted to cry. She was going to cry. She needed to get out of here. This was a mistake.
“Oh, John. There’s someone here who wants to see you again. Seraphina came. Isn’t that something?” Jane said. “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”
The ground caved under him. Sera? She was here? Today of all days? After so long, she was here?
“Seraphina?” Larissa quietly asked. “Isn’t she…?”
“Yeah,” John solemnly nodded.
“You gonna go talk to her?” Larissa asked.
“You don’t mind?” John knew this must be a strange situation to be in. The fiance and the soulmate.
“Of course. She’s your twin flame. Besides, I trust you,” Larissa gave him a kiss on the cheek and went to get all the cakes set up with Jane and Cameron.
Once alone, John took a deep breath to steady himself.
Sera was here. She wanted to talk to him. But why? They hadn’t spoken since he moved out of their shared apartment. He never reached out to her and she never did either. Maybe since he was the one to leave first, he should have extended that hand first but he couldn’t.
Every time his finger hovered over Sera’s name in his contacts, he’d been plagued with thoughts of her telling him about all the things she’d been up to and the guilt that he’d been preventing her from her goals. Or worse, she wouldn’t even pick up the phone. In the end, he just never did.
John didn’t see Sera anywhere in the crowd. He asked around but nobody seemed willing to answer, more focused on the engagement ring on his finger before answering him in the negative.
Eventually he left and walked around the halls. Perhaps she was in the bathroom?
The sounds of crying drew him further ahead where he was met with the most peculiar sight. Sera was on the floor in a crouched position, bawling her eyes out.
“Sera?” John tentatively asked. He rarely ever saw Sera act like this. Something truly devastating must have happened to make her react like this. If somebody hurt her, he swore…
“John!” Sera shot up from her sitting position and rapidly wiped away her tears and smoothed out her clothes. “What are you doing here? It’s your mom’s birthday, you should be with her.”
“She told me you wanted to talk with me? So I came to look for you,”
“Yeah, well, she’s mistaken. There’s nothing to talk about anymore, so you can just leave me alone.” Sera said with a bit of bite to her words.
John hesitated for a second before stepping closer to her. “Are you alright?” John looked at her with concern.
“Yes,” Sera said with a tight smile. “Of course I’m alright. So why don’t you just go back to your who-woman and leave me alone?”
“Oh, so you know about Larissa.” John said in a dejected tone. It was one thing to talk to his fiance about the soulmate who rejected him. It was another to talk about his fiance with his soulmate.
“Sure, whatever her name was. Why don’t you bother her or something?” Sera glared at him, the very mention of the hussy’s name made her blood boil. At the same time, it made her eyes water with unshed tears that were threatening to come out and a sob that she refused to let out until John was well out of earshot.
“Do you have a problem with Larissa for some reason? You’ve never even met her.” John noticed the change in demeanour at the mention of his fiance.
“I don’t have to. I already know plenty about her,” Sera spat at him. Dear lord, she was petty. Here she was, cursing the name of the woman who stole John’s heart who she was sure had to be the epitome of perfection if she was chosen by John. And all she could do was stew in misery.
“Sera, what is this all about?” John hopelessly asked. He was so confused about the whole situation. He and Sera hadn’t talked in years and the first time they did, she seemed angry about his fiance for some reason.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Sera clenched her jaw as her fists tightened. “You know why? Because I am over you! You hear that?! I! Am Over! You!”
“What?” John muttered, her exclamation taking him by surprise. What did she mean when she said she was over him? She never loved him. She never had feelings for him. There was absolutely no reason for her to ever say that.
“You’re over me? When… when were you… under me?” John stuttered in confusion.
The vulnerability in John’s voice sapped Sera of all her rage and all she was left with was her crippling despair.
“I’ve always loved you. And I will always love you. Till the end of my days.” Sera sniffed at her confession. Finally, after all this time, she finally told John how she really felt.
John’s mind was in turmoil. No. This couldn’t be true. After all this time, constantly telling him how they, as soulmates, shouldn’t be together… It just didn’t make sense. She had to be lying. Pulling a trick on him. This all had to be some kind of prank.
“No. No.” John fervently shook his head. “No, don’t you ever say that to me. That isn’t funny, Sera.”
It turns out someone put her heart back into place and decided to repeatedly stab it. Her tears finally couldn’t be held back anymore and fell from her eyes. “What are you talking about? I love you. I always have,”
“Don’t bullshit me! That’s a lie! You told me yourself, you never wanted to be with me.” John yelled at her. This was what he dreamed of for years. And now that the moment was finally here, it was just a big joke being played on him. She was mocking him.
Confusion entered Sera’s mind, trying to recall when she ever said something like that. “No, that’s not true. I’ve loved you for so long. I waited years for you. I tried everything to get you to ask me out. But you never did.”
“Don’t bullshit me!” John slammed a fist against a wall. “That’s what you said you wanted. That you weren’t waiting for me, you were looking for someone else. You always were.”
“I never said that. I just wanted you. That’s all I ever wanted.” Sera sobbed harder as John’s rage grew.
“That’s bullshit! You told me that even though we’re soulmates, we shouldn’t be together. That you were gonna find someone else to spend your life with that would be better than any life you could have with me. That’s what you said!”
“No! I said that even though we’re not soulmates, we could be together. That a life spent with the two of us could be better than any life I could dream of!”
There was a moment of silence as the two of them digested what the other just told them.
“You’re telling me you didn’t know we’re soulmates?”
“What do you mean we are soulmates?” They both spoke at the same time.
“So when you said-”
“-soulmates didn’t need to be together-”
“-actually saying…”
Realization dawned on them with a growing horror.
“I was the one who pushed you away.”
“I was the one to reject you.”
Both of their brains were glitching at the new information given. So many years of misunderstandings, of unrequited longing, of missed opportunities, lay before their eyes, clear for the first time.
“I just- I don’t understand. You told me you didn’t have a soulmark. You lied to me? Why did you hide this from me?” Sera asked in a broken tone.
“I told that to you once when I was still playing Cripple. We just started getting to know each other. I didn’t even know it was you at the time. I thought my soulmark was going to ruin everything. That my god-tier soulmate was going to drag me back into the hierarchy, forcing me into everything I was trying to avoid. Reveal all my secrets. And most of all, I was terrified it was you. Because if it was, you would know how much of a savage brute I was. So yeah, I lied. Just like everything else about my life.”
“John, we’ve talked about this.” Sera said, her voice dropping at the mention of how low John thought of himself.
“I know, but that doesn’t change how I felt back then. And the fact is, I messed up, Sera. I screwed up and I didn’t realize it until it was beaten into my head how much of a mistake I made.”
The sounds of the party rang in the background, but both of them ignored it. This conversation was much more important and much too needed.
“What about you? When you confronted me about being Joker, you told me you knew everything. And I really thought you meant everything. What happened? I thought for sure Arlo or Isen would have told you. If not them, then at least Claire.”
“Oh, so they knew as well? Am I the last person to learn that we’re soulmates? And as for your question, evidently no. They didn’t tell me shit.”
“Assholes,” John muttered but Sera clearly heard it.
“Hey, don’t blame this on them. It wasn’t their responsibility to tell me we were soulmates. Even if it would have been helpful when you were on your Joker crusade, why didn’t you ever mention any of this after? You clearly knew at that point we were soulmates. Did you have such a low opinion of me that I would still leave you after that? After everything I did to talk some sense into you?”
“Of course not. But it’s one thing to talk about all the terrible things I’d done, about all the stupid mistakes I made. It’s another thing to talk about how we’re bonded in a spiritual sense and destined to be together for the rest of our lives. We were just kids. I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.” John defended himself.
“Were you ever going to be ready?” Sera looked at him with judgement in her eyes.
“I wanted to be.” John helplessly shrugged. “I wanted to be ready for you. You were everything to me, Sera. I didn’t want to lose you. But by then, I thought it was too late. You told me that crap about not being with your soulmates and waiting for someone else to come along and it broke my heart.”
“And yet you still stayed by my side through the entire revolution? Even shared an apartment together for a few years?” Sera asked. “Why would you do that if you thought you were never going to have a chance with me?”
“Because I loved you, Sera. More than anything. You were my best friend. I would have done anything for you. No matter how much it hurt, I wanted to be with you for everything, no matter if I was just your best friend or your soulmate. I just wanted to be close with you.”
“So why did you leave?” Thinking about that day was making Sera choke up again. “If you really wanted to stay by my side for everything, why were you the one to pull away from me first? You specifically told me that you were leaving to get away from me.”
“I thought I was holding you back. I got it in my head that being soulmates and not being together wasn’t fair to either of us. I thought I was going to keep you from finding happiness with someone else and I would be left as nothing once you did. I thought it was selfish of me to stay around just to make myself happy, so I left. I thought I was setting the both of us free.” John responded.
“You thought wrong.” Sera quietly said.
After a quiet moment of contemplation, letting all the new information sink in, Sera asked “What happens now?”
“Now?” John asked incredulously. “Now, I have a life. I have a fiance I need to get back to.”
“Leave her,” Sera said as though she had some sort of epiphany. “Forget about her. We can be together,”
“What? No. Sera, I’m not gonna do that to Larissa. I love her.” John shook his head.
“No you don’t!” Sera shouted in desperation. “You’re in love with me. Just like how I’m in love with you. We belong together. That’s what this means!” Sera roughly grabbed John’s shirt down where she knew her mark was to reveal the shining blue 9.0 etched above his chest.
The sight of it almost made Sera cry in relief and triumph that it was real and it was there all this time, like it was waiting for her.
John pried her hands apart to release him and backed away from her. “That doesn’t matter Sera.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?! We’re soulmates! We’re supposed to be together.” Sera practically screamed at him.
“I can’t do that to Larissa. She doesn’t deserve that. We’ve been together for over a year now. We respect and care for each other. She means so much to me. And I do love her. That’s just how it is.”
“But not like you love me. She’s never going to feel what I feel for you. And you’re never going to feel the same way about her that you do for me.”
“Yeah, I know,” John immediately agreed. “But that’s what I need, Sera. I need someone that isn’t going to constantly invade my every thought. Someone that I can feel safe around that I don’t constantly rely on.”
“I can be that for you. You don’t need her.” Sera insisted.
“Sera, please. No.”
Sera huffed in annoyance. “You always do this, John. You keep running away from your problems. You don’t have to be afraid of being in love with me, because you know what? I’m scared too. But screw it, I want to give us a shot.”
“Scared? I’m not scared. And I’m not running from my problems either. This is my solution because we’re not getting together, Sera. I’m getting married to Larissa, and that’s that.”
“Fine, if you’re so insistent on getting married to her-” Sera rolled her eyes.
“She has a name.” John said.
“-then you could see me on the side.” Sera proposed. “I don’t mind if you’re still seeing her.”
“No,” John firmly shook his head.
“No, see, this is the perfect solution. You get married to her and come to me for everything else. It’s genius.” Sera exclaimed with an elated expression.
“I’m not doing that to you, Sera. I’m not going to cheat on my wife with my soulmate. That’s not who I am.”
“Fine, she can join us if she wants.” Sera shrugged.
“Sera, no!” For the first time, John lost his composure and grabbed her by her shoulders, shaking her out of this craziness. “We’re not getting together.”
“Why not?” A dam burst behind Sera’s eyes, her tears flooding her vision. “I’m in love with you. And I know you’re in love with me. So why can’t we be together?”
John gave a great sigh and finally admitted “I’ve always been in love with you, Sera. And a part of me always will be.” Sera looked at him with hope in her eyes.
How naive of her when that hope was squashed beneath his next words. “But things are too different now. I’m not the boy you knew back then. And you’re not the same girl as before either. We can’t be together anymore.”
“But I want to be.” Sera sobbed. “I don’t care how things have changed. I still want to be with you so much. Tell me you don’t feel the same way. Tell me to my face that you don’t want us to be together. Because if you do, I won’t be in your life anymore. Because I won’t be able to stand seeing you with her and not me.”
John took a deep breath to steady himself. This was going to be the hardest thing he was ever going to say. The biggest lie that’ll ever cross his lips and they both knew it. He looked in her eyes and said “I don’t want to be with you.”
Seraphina’s body shook as her sob wracked her entire body as those words shattered her. Tears streamed down her face as she felt her upper lip become wet with snot.
In spite of that, John leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss on the forehead. “I’m so sorry. Goodbye Seraphina.”
With his final words echoing in her head, John stepped away and returned to his mother’s party as though he had not just ripped out his own heart along with Seraphina’s. Returned back into the arms of his fiance and kissed her with all the love he could spare.
Sera joined soon after, her eyes red from all the crying and excused herself to leave the party. Her eyes lingered on John’s for a brief moment, as though waiting for him to say something, anything.
He turned away.
Seraphina left the party quickly.
They never saw each other ever again.