章 71: CHAPTER 71: Hard Choices

<p>Ella</p>

<p>I keep thinking about Elijah as I drive home. I grip the steering wheel a little tighter, my thoughts pulling me back to that first time we met.</p>

<p> From the moment I laid eyes on him, everything shifted. He was so well-spoken, kind, and the way he commanded respect without even trying—there was something magnetic about him. He made me feel seen in a way I hadn't felt in a long time.</p>

<p>My heart beats with longing, a pulse of warmth spreading through my chest at the thought of him. But then, as if betraying me, a small voice in the back of my mind whispers something else, and I hate it. George.</p>

<p>Why, after everything, is there still a part of me that's stuck on him? A part of me that still longs for him in some twisted, inexplicable way?</p>