Moonlit Mountain (Caleb and Sarah)

Finding Forever After the Betrayal Chapter 11

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Ethan replayed the last few weeks in his mind, each memory a shard of glass

twisting in his gut. Violet's withdrawal, her quiet fury over the lilies, her almost desperate need to sell the house... it all snapped into focus, sharp and agonizingly clear.

She'd been planning this, meticulously plotting her escape from the moment she realized they were no longer the center of her universe. And maybe, he realized with a chilling certainty, she'd been planning it long before that. Hannah's call, bubbly and oblivious, was a slap in the face.

"Ethan? Aiden? Are you guys coming? I'm at the restaurant. I ordered champagne! We're celebrating!"

Celebrating what? The demolition of their friendship? Hannah's triumph?

The gaping hole in their lives that had once been filled with Violet's warmth and

light? He stared at his phone, the screen glowing with Hannah's name, a mocking reminder of their betrayal.

"Ethan?" Hannah's voice, usually so intoxicating, now grated on his nerves, amplifying the dull ache in his chest.

"Hannah," he finally rasped, his voice thick with a grief he could barely

acknowledge, let alone understand. "Something came up. We're not coming. Let's

just... let's talk later, okay?"

12:35.

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He hung up before she could protest, tossing the phone onto the dashboard, where it landed with a thud that mirrored the hollowness settling in his chest. What was the point of celebrating? Violet was gone.

Aiden sat next to him, a statue of silent despair, his gaze fixed on the cracked screen of his own forgotten phone on the floor of the car. It was as if a part of him, the part that had always believed, with an arrogance bordering on delusion, that he could fix anything, had shattered along with it. "Gentlemen?"

up,

The realtor's voice, tinged with confusion, startled them both. Aiden looked his face drawn and pale, to see the realtor, a bewildered expression on his face, ushering a hopeful-looking couple towards the house. The house. Their house. "What... what are you doing here?" Aiden asked, his voice rough with an emotion he couldn't quite place.

"I thought... didn't you sell the house?" the realtor stammered, his gaze darting nervously between Aiden, Ethan, and the empty moving van parked haphazardly in the driveway."The contract... everything was signed." "We're buying it back," Aiden said, his voice flat, devoid of the usual charm that had always been his armor.

The realtor's eyebrows shot up, his expression shifting from confusion to 12:35

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understanding. Of course. These were the Peck boys. They could buy and sell

him ten times over without batting an eyelash.

draw

"Right," the realtor said, recovering quickly."Of course. Well, we'll need to

up a new contract, if that's alright with you."

Aiden simply nodded, his eyes cold, distant. He didn't care about the paperwork, about the money. It was all meaningless without Violet.

He watched as Aiden, his jaw clenched tight, signed his name with a flourish that was more of a convulsion than a signature, effectively buying back a life they'd so carelessly, so thoughtlessly, thrown away. He didn't argue, didn't point out the futility of it all. Deep down, a small, desperate part of him hoped that maybe, just maybe, by clinging to the house, they could somehow hold onto the memory of her, the ghost of her laughter that still lingered in the air.

But the house, stripped bare of her belongings, felt as empty and hollow as they did.

Hours later, long after the realtor had left, Aiden and Ethan sat on the bare wooden floor of the living room, surrounded by dust and shadows and the ghosts of a thousand shared memories. The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating, broken only by the occasional creak of the old house settling around them like a shroud.

They'd always been so good at filling the silence, with jokes, with arguments, 12:35

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with the easy banter of shared history. But now, the words wouldn't come.

Because deep down, they both knew that this, this emptiness, this cavernous

ache in their chests... this was the price of their betrayal They had everything, and nothing at all.