Every flutter in her chest when he sat beside her, every flush to her cheeks after a compliment, and every longer-than-average embrace would end tonight.

She would never forget how his soul was lonely as the moon they’d met under, and how, for several brief moments, she’d been able to chase the loneliness away.

Fuck, he deserved kindness, he deserved love and he deserved better than her.

Ice upon ice, and yet, inside, she melted and mourned all the same.

She was a splash of color on a white canvas, and not just because of the blue streaks threaded through the glossy brown hair tumbling around her shoulders.

He sure as hell hadn’t expected to walk into the middle of a standoff between a big bruiser and a short redhead who prepared to slurp the guy’s spine through a straw. And when she’d punched the big bruiser square in the jaw? Well, he just might’ve fallen in love.

Because if I fell any deeper for the way his eyes crinkled with his smile or his habit of tapping on his nose to emphasize a point, my ship would be sunk.

A thousand words blossomed to her lips and died there, because no amount of speaking could communicate the depths of how he’d affected her. Of how he’d changed her.

The dreams that surfaced upon meeting up with him again winked out of existence, stars darkening for good.