AURORA'S POV:
   The hotel ceiling is cracked in one corner.
It’s a small thing, barely noticeable unless you're lying flat on your back with nothing but your own thoughts clawing at you.
   Cali and the rest left the room a while ago in search of lunch. Celeste has been too traumatized to come back into the room. That's a win, I guess. 
   I turn onto my side, the sheets whispering against my skin.
   The room smells faintly of salt, the ocean carried in through the half-open window but it’s not enough to calm the storm inside me.
I squeeze my eyes shut trying to get some sleep and silence the voices but then the memories come.
   Uninvited. Relentless.
First, Jon.
   I see him the way he looked that night on the school field; all broad shoulders and messy hair, laughing at something stupid I said.
That stupid, lopsided grin of his.
The way he offered me his jacket without thinking twice, even when the cold made his teeth chatter.
"You’re freezing, Rory. Take it."
I think that was the first time he ever called me that. I told him to stop though... It made my heart flutter.
   As if he saw something bright in me, something worth protecting, long before I ever did.
   A tightness wraps around my heart, hot and aching.
Jon has always been steady. Safe.
Real.
And then there’s Arc.
    The flashback shifts, violent, sharp like flipping to another channel.
   I see Arc the night he trapped me in the locker room. The way his eyes glowed crimson under the flickering light.
The hunger in them. The hatred. The fear.
Back then, he terrified me.
   But underneath the cruelty, there was something else, too. A kind of brokenness.
  A desperate, furious need to push me away before I could hurt him first.
Seriously, God, somewhere along the way, I understood it. Understood him.
   I remember the feel of his hand when he finally touched me without anger, hesitant, almost reverent, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want something good.
"You ruin everything," he had whispered against my hair.
"And I can’t even hate you for it."
   I press my face into the pillow, trying to silence the way my heart is pounding against my ribs.
It’s not fair.
It's not fair how one moment, Jon makes me feel like I'm standing on solid ground, and the next, Arc makes me feel like I’m freefalling through a sky full of stars.
   How am I supposed to choose between gravity and flight?
  I kick the sheets off, too restless, too full of things I don’t know how to name.
Jon sees the good in me.
Arc sees the wreckage and stays anyway.
Here I am, stuck somewhere between wanting to be saved and wanting to be seen.
    The breeze picks up, carrying the scent of salt and rain into the room, and I let it wash over me, hoping it’ll scrub away the war inside my chest.
It doesn't. It just makes the ache sharper.
   If I close my eyes, I can still feel Jon’s arms around me the night I had my first nightmare, the steady way he breathed against my hair until I matched his rhythm.
   If I let myself drift further, I can still feel Arc’s fingers trailing down my wrist after our first real fight, the way his fangs dug into my neck softly - tentative, unspoken like he was trying to apologize without knowing how.
   They both know parts of me I didn’t even know existed and maybe that’s the real problem.
   I’m not just choosing between two people.
I’m choosing between two versions of myself.
The one who is safe, bright, whole.
And the one who is dark, broken, clawing her way out of the wreckage.
   I don’t know which one I’m supposed to be anymore.
   A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it. I wipe it away angrily, hating how weak I feel.
I survived worse. I survived everything.
Unfortunately, surviving doesn’t teach you how to live.
And loving...
Loving feels so much harder.
    I curl up tighter, breathing shallowly against the ache in my ribs, and for once, I don’t pretend to be strong. For once, I just feel it, the love, the fear, the helpless, terrifying hope of it all.
Heck, I don’t know where it’s going to lead me.
   But for tonight, lying here in a strange hotel room halfway across the world, with the sea air curling against my skin-
For tonight, I let myself miss both of them and not think about the fact that I have to make a decision about who to love between them. 
A soft knock on the door disrupts my thoughts.
It's almost like the person behind the door isn’t sure if they even have the right to be here.
I freeze. The air in the room thickens, heavy with the weight of everything I just opened inside myself.
   Another knock. A little firmer this time.
"Aurora?"
It’s Jon’s voice, low, careful, like he’s afraid I might shatter if he says the wrong thing.
   For a second, I think about answering.
Telling him to come in and letting him see the mess I’ve become.
   But my body stays frozen, my hands gripping the twisted sheets like a lifeline.
I can’t. Not yet. Not when my heart is still a battlefield.
  Not when the ghosts of Arc’s touch and Jon’s smile are still warring inside me, tearing me apart piece by piece.
   I press my forehead into the pillow, willing him to just... go.
Or maybe, maybe, willing him to stay.
I don’t even know anymore.
  "I’m here if you need me," he says quietly, and it’s somehow worse than if he’d just knocked and left.
  Because he means it. Every word.
And I know if I open that door, he’ll walk through it, no hesitation.
No demands.
Just Jon, solid and safe and waiting.
    Some awful, broken part of me is still looking for the pieces Arc left scattered across the floor. The silence stretches out like a rubber band, thin and trembling.
  Then finally, his footsteps retreat down the hall.
The ache he leaves behind is almost worse than his presence. I curl deeper into myself, letting the darkness in the room seep into my bones.
Tonight, I stay alone. With the memories, the war inside me and the unbearable, aching truth:
   I'm in love with two boys who have already carved their names into my soul and I don't know if I'll survive it.
THIRD PERSON POV:
Jon sits on the floor outside her door, back pressed against the cold wood.
He doesn’t leave.
Even when the hallway empties and the last echoes of the day die down.
   Even when the air turns colder, and his legs start to cramp from staying still too long.
He just sits there. Waiting. Listening.
For a breath. A whisper. Anything.
   But the only sound from inside her room is silence.
A thick, aching kind of silence that squeezes at his chest until he has to clench his fists just to keep from knocking again.
   "She needs space," he reminds himself under his breath.
"She’s allowed to need space."
It doesn’t make the weight pressing on his heart any lighter.
Jon leans his head back against the doorframe and stares up at the ceiling, fighting the urge to punch something.
Not because he’s angry at her.
Never at her.
   But because he hates that he can't take away whatever it is that's eating her alive. He closes his eyes.
   Memories flicker behind them. Her laugh, sharp and surprised, the way her whole face lights up when she smiles, the stubborn set of her jaw when she argues with him over something stupid, the way she crumpled into his arms when things got too heavy for her to carry alone.
  Jon draws a shaky breath.
"I’m not going anywhere, Aurora," he whispers.
The promise settles between them like a thread; unseen, but unbreakable.
   And even if she never opens the door, even if she never says another word to him tonight, he’ll be here.
For her.
Always.
Slowly, Jon leans his head against the door and lets the quiet swallow him.
He waits.
And if he falls asleep there guarding her like some lovesick idiot, then so be it.
He’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.