Before I Knew Your Name

let me at least explain

Erin's POV

“It’s different now. We’re not kids anymore, Erin.” The name again, bitter on her lips. “Whatever I felt back then—hurt, abandonment, all of it—I outgrew it. That pain shaped me, yes, but I don’t live in it anymore.” She leaned back, calm, merciless. “So stop clinging to it like it still matters. Stop being stuck in that childishness. I moved on.”

The words hollowed Erin out. Her guilt roared louder, shame spilling over. Because she hadn’t moved on—not for a single day. She had carried Kannika like a shadow, every letter unsent, every goodbye unspoken, etched into her bones.

And Kannika… Kannika had lived, had grown, had risen beyond her.

“I don’t even know what you want from me.” Kannika’s eyes softened only in the way pity does before it kills you. “Do you expect us to be friends again? To pick up where we left off, like none of it happened? Because life doesn’t work like that.”

Her mouth went dry. She wanted to scream the truth, the letter, the mistake that stole their ending. “I left you a—”

“What’s happening here?”

The interruption cleaved the air.

Luna stood a few steps away, brows furrowed, concern shadowing her face. Sol lingered at her side, her expression unreadable- save for the faint, knowing smirk, like she'd caught something dangerous unraveling.

The spell shattered.

Kannika rose smoothly, no trace of the girl Erin had known, only the actress who knew how to mask everything.

And just before she walked away, she looked back.

One glance. Brief, deliberate. Erin felt it carve her open—the weight of recognition and distance entwined. To Kannika, maybe it meant nothing. To Erin, it was everything: a confirmation that the girl she’d once loved was still there, just buried, unreachable.

Then the glance was gone. The sound of footsteps swallowed it whole.

And Erin sat frozen, hands trembling in her lap, her throat raw with words that would never leave her.

Erin sat there long after Kannika’s footsteps faded, her whole body humming with the aftershock. Her palms were clammy against her knees, her throat raw, and yet she couldn’t move.

She outgrew it. She moved on.

The words echoed like bells in a cathedral, deafening, merciless. Erin had thought she’d prepared herself for anger, for resentment. But indifference—that was worse. To Kannika, their childhood bond was a closed book, a chapter filed away, shaping but not defining. To Erin, it was the story. The one she never stopped reading in the dark, the one she clutched when the world felt foreign and cold.

She had been the one to leave. She had been the one who vanished. And now she carried all the weight of that choice alone, crushing, unending.

Her vision blurred, and she blinked hard, refusing to let tears fall in front of everyone. She swallowed, but her chest felt split open, raw and airless.

“Hey.”

Luna’s voice, soft, cautious.

Erin startled, her head jerking up. Luna was beside her now, crouched a little to meet her eyes. Concern pulled at her features, but not pity—never pity. Just steady, warm presence.

“Do you…” Luna hesitated, as though afraid of pushing too hard. “Do you want us to leave now?”

The question broke something. The gentleness of it, the permission to run, to stop pretending.

Before she could stop herself, Erin leaned forward, clutching Luna’s frame like a lifeline. She buried her face against her shoulder, inhaling the faint trace of perfume mixed with the cool night air that clung to her dress. Luna stiffened for a heartbeat, then melted into the embrace, arms wrapping around her with quiet strength.

Erin nodded against her, unable to trust her voice.

And for the first time that night, the noise, the crowd, even Kannika’s cutting words receded. All that remained was the warmth of Luna’s arms and the fragile, unspoken truth: she wasn’t alone, not tonight.