Break It Right Back—Megan Moroney

Dressed to the nines, you were gold in the spotlight. Said all the right things—gods, even his mom would’ve liked you. You smiled at his scars like they didn’t scare you.

Said they made him real.

Said they made him strong.

And when he brought you home, Reyna pulled him aside and said, “Don’t mess this up, Grace.”

He tried not to.

You told him you weren’t afraid of ghosts—

The past ones. The war ones. The Jason ones.

And he believed you.

Because when someone looks at you like you’re not broken at all —like maybe the world made you this way for a reason—you start to believe them.

You start to build something.

Something soft. Something sacred.

Something like hope.

You swore you were different.

You swore you’d stay.

And Jason Grace—gods help him—believed you.

But now you’re standing outside his barracks under a sky that’s too quiet, and it’s not raining but it feels like it should be.

You’re not even crying. You’re just… tired.

And Jason?

Jason can’t even look at you.

“You weren’t supposed to be just like the rest,” he says.

His voice is low, wrecked. “You swore up and down that you loved me to death.”

Maybe he was too much.

Too heavy with memories.

Too haunted by things he never asked for.

Too Jason.

But you asked him to try again.

You begged him to.

He let you in—deeper than Camp Half-Blood, deeper than New Rome—he let you see the nights he couldn’t sleep.

The guilt. The pressure. The lightning in his chest that never turned off.

And you told him it was okay. That broken boys still deserved soft love.

And for a while, he believed that too.

Until you turned away.

Until you made him feel like a burden — like loving him was a task, not a choice.

Like he was something to fix, not something to choose.

“You felt like you had to take my broken heart and fix it,” he whispers. “just to turn around… and break it right back.”

So go on.

Tell your friends he was too serious.

Too much of a praetor, not enough of a boy.

Tell them he overthought everything—that he held on too tightly, that he carved your name into a future you never wanted.

Tell them he was already halfway married to Rome.

That he couldn’t keep up with your wildfire heart.

That he didn’t belong in your stories, in your spotlight, in your dream.

He’ll stand there like a statue while you rewrite it all.

He won’t beg. He won’t ask. He won’t fall apart in front of you.

But you and Jason both know:

He wasn’t the one who promised the impossible.

You were.

You weren’t supposed to be just like the rest.

But gods—it hurts how well you wore the lie.

And maybe he’ll move on.

Maybe one day he’ll stop checking the door.

Stop imagining your laugh in crowds.

Stop tracing your initials in the margins of maps.

But tonight, the sky stays dry.

The thunder stays in his chest.

And you walk away.

And he lets you.

Because Jason Grace?

He always keeps his promises.

Even when no one else does.