The clock struck 3 a.m., but her mind refused the sanctity of sleep. The city outside her penthouse window shimmered, full of ambition and noise, yet eerily hollow. Leaning against the windowpane, she nursed a glass of wine, her eyes scanning the skyline. Beneath the glamour of success lay a darkness that even the soft murmurs of the city couldn’t fill.

It came like a postcard in memory: his quiet smile, the way his cardigan sleeves bunched at his wrists, the way he’d listen. The way Spencer had seen through the chaos in her to the quiet girl she’d buried beneath ambition. He was her calm within the storm—unremarkable to some, but extraordinary to her.

Their love had been spontaneous, blinding, but ultimately fleeting. He wanted a life rooted in constants, where morning coffee was shared over newspapers and laughter echoed in a suburban home. She wanted boardrooms, deadlines, and the pulse of adoration roaring from packed stadiums. He offered steady sunlight, but she craved the midnight rain.

“You can’t outrun yourself forever,” he had said the night they ended things, his voice steady yet breaking, his hazel eyes glistening with goodbye.

And tonight, her sleepless mind sang his words back to her, a haunting refrain. She told herself she had won. The career she’d built was monumental, walls of achievement he could only ever glimpse on a screen. Yet, victory never felt lonelier.

Somewhere out there, Spencer likely existed within the life he dreamed of—a wife, children, Christmas mornings filled with laughter and the smell of cinnamon. She pictured it vividly; his arms wrapped around someone else, long gone from the storm she’d been. And maybe he never thought of her anymore except when he glimpsed her name in lights, if at all.

The wine glass trembled in her fingers. "This is what I wanted," she whispered hoarsely to her reflection. The city echoed back nothing.

And still, between empty breaths, she lingered at the window, haunted by the shards of midnight. Wondering who she could’ve been if she'd stayed.