Chapter 1:THE END BEFORE THE BEGINNING
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the pavement was still wet enough to reflect the flashing blue and red lights.
People stood behind the police tape, whispering.
Some covered their mouths.
Others simply watched.
Nobody knew the whole story.
They only knew two names.
“Mira…”
“…Bryce.”
The names traveled through the crowd like a prayer that had arrived too late.
Bryce stood a few feet away, his white shirt stained with blood that wasn’t all his.
His hands trembled.
Not because he was cold.
Because there was nothing left to hold onto.
An officer spoke to him.
He didn’t answer.
Another asked for his statement.
Silence.
His eyes never left the ambulance.
As if staring hard enough could undo the last ten minutes.
The stretcher finally disappeared behind the ambulance doors.
That was the moment something inside him broke.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
The kind of breaking that never heals.
Across the street, a woman cried into her husband’s shoulder.
“You said they were happy,” she whispered.
“They were.”
“No…”
She shook her head.
“Happy people don’t end like this.”
Bryce laughed.
Just once.
A broken, hollow laugh that frightened everyone close enough to hear it.
They thought he had lost his mind.
Maybe he had.
Or maybe losing the person you built your future around simply sounded like that.
Someone from the crowd spoke softly.
“I heard they were supposed to get married.”
Another voice answered.
“I heard they stopped speaking months ago.”
“No…”
“I heard someone betrayed someone.”
“I heard there was another girl.”
“I heard it was family.”
“I heard—”
Nobody knew.
Everybody guessed.
Truth had become a stranger.
Bryce finally looked up.
The city lights blurred behind tears he refused to let fall.
His lips parted.
Only four words escaped.
“I never meant this.”
No one knew who he was talking to.
The police.
God.
Or the woman inside the ambulance.
The siren came alive.
The ambulance pulled away.
Bryce didn’t move.
He watched until the red lights became tiny dots…
…and then disappeared completely.
For the first time in his life,
he understood that love doesn’t always leave with goodbye.
Sometimes…
it leaves with a siren.
Three Years Earlier…Mira hated being late.
Bryce hated waiting.
Neither of them knew that in less than ten minutes…
their lives were about to collide.
And one day…
the whole city would remember where they ended.
