Mind Blind Short Story: Heartbreak (Kenna Version) (Patreon)

Note: This story is the K-romance breakup scene in Chapter 17 as told from Kenzie's perspective. There are minor spoilers, so you may want to play through Chapter 17 of the Vengeance Route before reading further.

“Kenna, I—”

Something about the way Ellery looks at me makes me afraid. Fear isn’t something that I’m used to feeling. Most things stopped seeming intimidating after my mom died.

“El—” My voice breaks before I can even get out their name. My throat burns, but I swallow through the dryness and try again. “El, tell me what’s going on.”

I ask despite being terrified of the answer. Hiding from the truth doesn’t make it go away, though my mind has spent the last week trying to run from certain realizations. Usually, I’m not the type of person to leap to conclusions, but Ellery’s expression . . .

But Ellery’s expression scares me.

I want to be wrong. I need to be wrong. I thought that Ellery was my reward, the universe’s way of balancing everything and everyone that I’ve lost. If El stayed beside me, I could confront my father. I hadn’t known that it was possible to feel that warm inside because of another person, and now I’m petrified of losing that feeling. Worse, of finding out that feeling has been based on a lie.

But there’s a reason that the two Vengeance members aren’t treating Ellery with hostility. I wish that my hands were free so that I could rip Andy’s smug smirk off of his face. I don’t want him or Boris here, don’t want witnesses.

If Ellery is going to break my heart, I wish they would do it in private.

“Let me get you a glass of water first,” El says, avoiding my gaze. “Your throat is so dry that you can barely speak.”

Even if I could speak, I’m not sure what else I’d say. Talia would say something clever and biting, but my mind draws a blank. Thinking up a response means acknowledging the situation, and I’m not ready to do that yet.

Talia would tell me to get a grip on myself if the communicator was still working. I wiggle my wrist, testing the strength of the bonds. Loose enough that I could slip free in fifteen minutes or so, probably without resorting to breaking my own thumb. My heart isn’t into planning the escape—I’m not even sure that I still have a heart. But Talia will be disappointed if I don’t try.

Is that disappointment in Ellery’s expression? How can they look disappointed when they’re the one who betrayed me?

No. Maybe I’m wrong. This is El, after all. They’re smarter, maybe even smarter than Talia. Our cover was blown, but maybe Ellery figured out a way to convince Boris and Andy it was all a misunderstanding.

“I’m leaving Operation Hemera,” Ellery says.

For the briefest second, I’m still hopeful. I don’t take the words at face value because Ellery must be acting.

. . . But I know Ellery.

Not as well as I thought, obviously. But I’ve found myself watching Ellery over these past weeks even when I tried focusing on other things. I know their mannerisms, the way the left side of their mouth lifts slightly higher than the right when they smile. I know that they’re telling the truth right now. Their expression is completely serious, and they’ve phrased things as bluntly as possible so that there’s no way I can misinterpret their message.

Ellery must’ve noticed the hope in my eyes. This is their way of being merciful, I guess, making it so I can’t read between the lines and reach the wrong conclusion.

The grief of losing Ellery is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I mourned my mom, but she was gone. Crying wouldn’t bring her back, so I tried to live my life the way she’d want me to. Ellery is still here, close enough to touch if my hands were free. Yet at the same time, Ellery is gone. My El, the one who I thought that I knew, the one that I made up in my head.

“Don’t do this to us.”

It takes me a moment to realize that I’m the one who has spoken. From Ellery’s shocked expression, they’re as taken aback by my words as I am. My father would laugh if he ever learned how pathetic I’m acting. ‘Zarnekis don’t beg,’ he always told me, but right now I’d crawl on my hands and knees if that meant Ellery would come back to me.

Ellery looks away.

Of course. They’re not coming back.

The Ellery who I fell in love with never existed.