“I’m not trying to push you away,” I said quickly. “I just?—”
“I know,” he interrupted gently, stroking his fingers down my cheek then across my lips. “I know, Flash. You let me in this week and you showed me what you’re building. I can see it. I just wish I knew where I fit inside it.”
That hurt. Because I didn’t know either.
We hugged for a long time.
Not dramatic. Not desperate. Just two people holding on a little longer than necessary because letting go felt like admitting something neither of us had words for.
At the door, he kissed me softly. Once. Then again, like he was trying to imprint the moment.
“Call me,” he said.
“I will.”
“You better.”
“Let me know you get home safely,” I ordered and he winked.
“I will.”
Echoing him, I said, “You better.” His smile only grew. Then with a kiss to his fingers, he pressed them to my lips.
I walked him down the stairs, wanting these last few seconds. He moved with confidence, bag slung over his shoulder. At the main door, I let him out and watched him move through the rain to the taxi.
After one last, lingering look, he climbed into the car and then… he was gone.
I stared after the taxi long after I lost sight of it. Eventually, I made myself retreat inside and the main door closed with a quiet, almost definitive click. The walk back up seemed to take everything I had.
The apartment felt immediately larger. Quieter. Less inhabited.
I stood there for a long time, listening to the echo of his laughter and the ghost of his footsteps fade into the walls. My phone was already lighting up in my hand — reminders, deadlines, people who needed things from me again.
The space he’d left didn’t stay empty for even a minute.
My calendar didn’t wait.
And neither did I.
The strangest part was — beneath the sadness, beneath the relief, beneath the familiar tightening of my schedule snapping back into place — there was something else.
A thin, unsettling realization I couldn’t quite outrun.
I wasn’t sure whether I was more afraid of missing him…
Or of how quickly I was already refilling the space he’d just created.
Chapter
Twenty-One
RACHEL
Iwoke up to an apartment that felt wrong in a way I couldn’t immediately name.
Not empty. Not quiet. Just… off.
The light was the same. The sounds were the same—David practicing somewhere below me, traffic murmuring through the open window—but something had shifted, and even though I’d slept wrapped around his pillow, his absence was suddenly unmistakable.
