And terrifying.
But at the same time...
That was also how she knew.
This had to happen.
The diner door stuck the way it always did, and Kyara had to push it twice with her shoulder before the bell over her head gave its familiar tired jingle.
It was the same as it always was. The working-class crowd too busy with their own mornings to notice her. The smell of bacon grease and burnt coffee. The booth in the back where Cyrus always sat, because it had the best view of the door, which was also one of those things she had never really thought about until just now, and now that she was thinking about it she couldn’tun-think it, because of course Cyrus would want to see who was coming in before they saw him, of course he would.
Don’t.
Don’t start now.
Just walk.
So she walked, with her bag clutched too tight against her side and her coat sleeve catching against the tacky edge of every booth she passed, and she didn’t even register that her hands were shaking until she was already standing in front of him.
“Good morning.”
Cyrus looked up from his phone.
“Baby—what the hell happened to you?”
Cyrus couldn’t help wincing at how awful Kyara looked today. Sure, she was always dressed like a prude, but she had at least been apresentableprude, but this...
What was up with her red-rimmed eyes? Didn’t she realize she looked like a zombie right now? And her clothes? She had buttoned her cardigan wrong, for one thing, and her hair was scraped back into something that wasn’t really a bun and wasn’t really a ponytail and was definitely not the kind of thing his girlfriend should be showing up in.
Cyrus glanced around the diner to make sure no one was watching, and was relieved when Kyara chose to sit across from him instead of next to him. No way did he want anyone thinking she was his girlfriend, not with her looking like that.
She slid into the opposite booth, and the vinyl made the same sticky sound it always made under her thighs, and Kyara found that comforting somehow, the sameness of it, even though nothing else was the same.
“I’m sorry—”
“You should be.” Cyrus set his coffee mug down with a smallthunkof disapproval. “You’re being very selfish. What if we’re seen by someone we know?”
Kyara opened her mouth, then closed it.
Cyrus took her silence as the invitation it absolutely wasn’t, and leaned back against the booth with the air of a man preparing to deliver a much-needed lecture for her own good.
“I mean, I’m not trying to be harsh, babycakes, but you have to take more pride in yourself. Have you even brushed your hair? And I’ve been telling you for months, real makeup, not that drugstore stuff. And honestly—” his eyes flicked over her with the same flicker he gave his coffee when the waitress brought it lukewarm “—maybe it’s also time to start thinking about losing a bit of weight. Just a little. For you, I mean. For your confidence.”
Kyara could only stare.
How could she be so blind?
And...and stupid?
How could she have been with this man for three years and not realizehe was the selfish one between them?
She had spent three years chantingloyal to Cyrus, loyal to Cyruslike a shield, and the entire time, the thing she was being loyal to was a man who was looking at her right now like she was an embarrassment.
Her hands tightened around the strap of her bag in her lap.
“I hope you don’t do this again, Kyara. I’m afraid the only way you can make up—”
“I can’t,” Kyara blurted out.
