Chapter 12. Blooming Feathers

Gerard POV

I didn’t stop working out until my muscles trembled violently, every fiber screaming from the strain. The sun hadn’t even risen fully, and yet I had forced myself out of bed, determined to escape the suffocating presence of Elina. She had spent the entire night beside me, ranting incessantly about trust—or rather, her version of it. How she kept insisting that her childhood friend was “just a friend,” how she wished I would listen, how she wanted me to understand her better. Her words had been suffocating, almost mocking in their absurdity, especially coming from her.

I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. My exhaustion was too deep, my patience spent long before the first glimmers of dawn. The relationship we had was a sham, a facade constructed long ago and reinforced with threats and agreements. We had been forcefully paired together since our teenage years. My father, be