Sera woke to the absence before the note. The bed was too cold on one side, too quiet. Finn was a restless sleeper, always shifting, always mumbling. The silence felt wrong. Too still.

She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes, and that’s when she saw it—folded paper resting delicately on her pillow like a goodbye kiss. Her name scrawled across the front in Finn’s handwriting.

Dear Sera, my love, my sunshine—

Her eyes skimmed the words, but her mind refused to catch up. Her fingers trembled. Her breath caught in her throat.

By the time she reached the bottom of the letter—"I will always love you, forever and always, but move on darling, please, you deserve love. Goodbye my sunshine, -Finn"—the words blurred through her tears.

Something in her cracked.

She called out for him. Once, then again, louder. When there was no answer, panic clawed up her chest like a living thing. She stumbled through the apartment, checked every room until her hand landed on the bathroom door.

Locked.

Her heart dropped. She pounded on it with shaking fists. “Finn—! Finn, please open the door! Please—!”

No sound. No movement.

The world narrowed to the splintering wood beneath her fists. She screamed his name, her voice hoarse, cracking under the weight of fear and grief. “Don’t do this—”

Sera’s heart shattered all over again with every word he spoke. She could hear him—barely—his voice raw, ragged, barely clinging to breath.

She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the door like she could will it open, like she could hold him through the wood, pull him back into her arms with the force of her love alone.

“No,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I can’t let you go.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, her hands shaking where they rested against the door. “I know you're miserable. I know, Finn. And I’m so sorry you’re hurting this bad. But letting you go? That would break me. That would kill me too.”

She took a shaky breath, trying to keep herself steady, but everything inside her felt like it was falling apart. “You think there’s peace after this, but what if there’s not? What if this—me, us—what if this is the part that gets better? What if you’re standing right on the edge of something worth staying for, and you never even get to see it?”

Her voice lowered, soft, aching. “You haven’t even seen what your love does to me. How much light you give—even when you don’t feel it. Even now. You’re still holding on. You haven’t taken the pills. That means something, Finn. It means something.”

She pressed her palm flat against the door, like it might reach his. “You don’t have to hold it all by yourself anymore. Let me help carry it. Let me stay with you through this. Just open the door. Please.”

There was still time. There was still time.

And she would spend every second of it fighting for him—not letting him go.