You see him before he sees you.

It’s in the Great Hall — the low hum of chatter, the flicker of candlelight, and there he is. Mattheo, with his sleeves rolled up and his smirk just barely tugging at his mouth. You hate that your heart still stops. You hate that even after everything — after the threats, the screaming, the nights you swore you’d never speak again — he can still make you feel like you’re seventeen and untouchable.

He laughs at something Astoria says. She’s sitting beside him, bright and golden and so sweet it almost makes you sick. The perfect opposite of everything you ever were. She leans into him like she belongs there. And maybe she does.

You force yourself to look away, pretending not to care, pretending your chest isn’t tightening the way it always does when his name crosses your mind.

You remember how it used to be — how you’d sit by the lake with him, trading insults that sounded like endearments, how your fights always ended with a kiss that felt like war and peace at once. You both knew it wasn’t healthy. You both knew it couldn’t last. But neither of you were the kind to walk away until it was already too late.

That night in his dorm — the last one — you didn’t cry. Neither did he. You just watched him pull his shirt back on, jaw tight, eyes unreadable.

“This isn’t working anymore,” he’d said. And you’d only shrugged. “Then go.”

And he did. Just like that.

Now, months later, you pass each other in corridors and pretend to be strangers. Except you’re not. You never could be.

Sometimes, you catch him watching you — just a flicker, a glance that lingers half a second too long. Sometimes you imagine what would happen if you walked up to him, if you said his name the way you used to.

But you don’t.

You just keep walking.

Because he chose someone soft, and you were never soft. You were fire — and he was gasoline. Together, you burned too bright to last.

Still, in the quietest corners of the castle, when no one’s watching, you swear you can feel his eyes on you — like a ghost that refuses to let go.

And maybe that’s the curse of it all: You stopped being his. But you never stopped being his favorite sin.