Sad Beautiful Tragic (Taylor’s Version)—T.S. Standing right by the tracks, the cold seeping into your bones, you can hear the whistle in the distance—low and mournful. You’ve always thought trains sounded like heartbreak. In your gloved hand, the silver locket feels heavier than it should. Inside: Grayson Davenport Hawthorne’s face, still smiling the way he did when you first took the photograph. You don’t wear it every day anymore, but you’d fastened it around your neck this morning without thinking. You wonder if the long, handwritten note you once tucked into his pocket is still there, folded into perfect thirds, the ink smudged from his fingers. He hasn’t mentioned it. You haven’t asked. He stands beside you, tall and careful, his breath a pale cloud in the frigid Christmas Eve air. The sky is streaked in red and gold, the sun dipping lower and lower, like it’s trying to escape. “We had… a beautiful, magic love there.” Your voice is steady, your eyes fixed on the horizon. You don’t look at him. You’re not sure you could decipher the storm in his eyes if you tried. “What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair,” Grayson says quietly, fists balled in the pockets of the black coat over his suit. He’s dressed like he’s just stepped out of some winter gala, but here, by the tracks, the only thing that matters is the way his shoulders slope forward—like the weight of it all has finally caught up to him. You don’t answer. You just stand together, the rails gleaming faintly in the dying light. Time has been slow, unbearably slow, in erasing him from you. You suspect it’s been the same for him. And he has his demons. They all look like you. There were so many factors in your unraveling. Distance—miles stretching between cities, continents. Timing—never aligning, always just off. Breakdowns—when the pressure was too much for either of you to carry. Fighting—because you both knew exactly how to cut each other deep. Silence—worse than shouting, because it meant neither of you believed the other would listen. The train ran off its tracks long before either of you admitted it. He’d kiss you sometimes after a fight, thinking that maybe if his lips were gentle enough, if his hands were steady enough, it could erase the words you’d thrown at each other. But all you’d wanted in those moments was for him to hear you. To really hear you. And you—you’d hang up the phone before the conversation could crash entirely, even though your hands shook for hours afterward. You’d give up in little ways, a thousand tiny surrenders, because the life of an “us” you’d once built together was slipping too far out of reach. You think of all the places you’ve been with him—the balcony in Paris, the car rides at midnight, the back hallways of Hawthorne House where you’d both pretend you weren’t looking for each other. You think of the sound of his laugh in July. The look in his eyes when he told you he loved you for the first time, though you both acted like you didn’t hear it. Because you had a beautiful, magic love there. The kind that makes people believe in forever. And yet— What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair. The train roars past, wind tearing at your hair, and for a moment you feel like you could step forward, cross that invisible line between you. But you don’t. Neither of you does. You just watch it disappear into the distance.