Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 09

Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 09

Six months later, I wasn’t coming home alone; I’d brought someone who liked sticking close by my side everywhere I went.

“Celeste, where am I gonna crash tonight?”

“Celeste, let me haul your luggage for you.”

I walked ahead, a little exasperated.

Isaac Reed was the guy I’d met during my internship in Seattle. He was the youngest son of a Beta family from Riverpine Pack. We’d both just graduated, and we worked in related design fields, so we’d quickly grown close.

He was a few months younger than me, and he’d use that small age gap as an excuse to stick right by my side every single day.

“Celeste, your neighborhood has so many trees.”

“Celeste, how old is that oak tree?”

“Celeste…”

I came to a stop.

Declan stood beneath that same old oak tree downstairs. He’d lost a little weight, and there was a tiny nick on his chin from a rushed shave.

When he spotted me, he took one step forward, then froze.

Then his gaze landed on Isaac behind me.

Isaac was dragging one suitcase in each hand, with my pink backpack slung over his shoulders. The bright pink bag clashed sharply with his all-black outfit.

He peeked half his head out, glancing from Declan to me.

“Is this an old friend of yours?”

“Someone from my past,” I said flatly.

Declan parted his lips but said nothing at all.

Isaac blinked, propped the suitcases against the wall, fished earbuds out of his pocket and slipped them in, then squatted by the building entrance to scroll through his phone.

After just a couple taps, he stood back up, pulled the pink backpack off his back, and set it on top of the luggage.

“Celeste, should I step away for a little while?”

“Stay a minute. Come up and eat with us. Mom wanted to invite you over for dinner tonight.”

Declan looked at Isaac, then turned his eyes back to me.

“You used to be just like this,” he began.

“Like what?”

“You used to chatter on and on just like this. Whenever I spent time working in the lab, you’d hover right beside me, rambling about everything under the sun. You’d ramble about anything—the cafeteria food being too salty, our professor’s new haircut, a stray cat you passed on the sidewalk, little things like that.”

He paused.

“I used to think all that chatter was annoying. But once the lab went quiet for good, I finally realized it wasn’t noise at all. It was what made that quiet space feel full and alive.”

The smell of roast beef, chili peppers, and melty cheese drifted down from upstairs. Dad was making beef tacos for dinner tonight.

Declan’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“Celeste, I sold every single piece of my photography gear, you know that? I dug up the very first set of photos I ever took, and it hit me all at once. The whole reason I fell in love with photography in the first place was so I could take pictures of you.”

His voice grew rougher and hoarser by the second.

“After you left, my wolf spent endless time tracking your scent all over the place. The woods behind the pack house, the abandoned old campus buildings, right here under your apartment. I couldn’t catch even a trace of you anywhere. That’s when I understood exactly who I’d foolishly lost.”

Declan slowly lowered himself to his heels, overcome by a sudden, crushing wave of sorrow.

“Celeste… how did we end up like this? How could I have overlooked something this important?”

I stared down at him, at a loss for what to say.

I already knew just how painful it was to cut someone I’d been tied to for over ten years out of my life. Now it was his turn to endure that same hurt.

I stepped forward and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Declan. Let it go.”

I waved Isaac over to me, and the two of us headed inside our building. I glanced back one last time before shutting the front door; Declan still hadn’t stood up. He held his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

I closed the door firmly behind me.