Rude.
Still true.
Come over whenever.
I smile as I type out my response, stifling a small giggle, and I realize it feels good to laugh.Two hours later, Nicole is sprawled across my couch in leggings and fuzzy socks while Vinny stretches across her lap like he paid rent to be there.
A second bottle of nearly empty wine sit on the coffee table between us while snow taps softly against the apartment windows.
“I’m just saying,” Nicole points in my direction with her wineglass, “the man is suffering.”
“You don’t know that.”I huff out and roll my eyes.
Nicole rolls her eyes hard.“Vanessa, please.That man looks at you like you are the beginning and end.”
A laugh escapes me despite myself, then fades almost as quick.Because God.I know he does.And that’s what makes all of this hurt so much.Vinny stretches lazily before relocating from Nicole’s lap directly onto mine.
Nicole watches me for another second before her expression softens.“You’re in love with him.”It’s not a question.
I stare down into my wineglass.“Yeah.”The answer comes easier now.Sadder too.“I think…” I exhale a slow breath, “I don’t think I ever really stopped loving him.”
Nicole’s expression morphs into surprise.“Then what’s the problem?”
I lean back into the couch cushions, Vinny purring against my legs while the city glows white beyond the windows.
“The problem is that loving Hayden feels incredible inside the spaces he creates for us.”My throat tightens around the words.“But I don’t know if he knows how to love me outside of those spaces.He wants to keep me in a neat little box so nothing or no one can hurt me.”
Nicole nods in understanding.She doesn’t disagree or defend him, she just listens.Which is exactly what I need right now.“He hasn’t texted you?”
“No.”That part matters more than I want it to.Because old Hayden absolutely would have.He would’ve shown up, pushed, demanded answers and refused any distance at all.This Hayden listened.This Hayden told me he loved me.And I’m sure this time apart is killing him.And that somehow hurts too, because hurting him isn’t what I’m trying to do.
Nicole studies me over the rim of her wineglass.“You know,” she offers, “people don’t often change all at once.”
“I know.”
“You basically dropped an emotional nuclear weapon on the man and then disappeared.”
A startled laugh bursts out of me.“That’s a bit dramatic.”
“It’s accurate.”
Maybe it is.I don’t know anymore.I curl my legs beneath me and adjust Vinny.“I just…” My voice softens.“I want him to understand what I need.”
“And do you think he does?”
The question settles between us.Because if I’m honest?Yeah, I think he actually does.That’s the problem now.The silence no longer feels like avoidance.It feels like restraint.And the absence between us now doesn’t feel empty anymore.It feels like a careful choice I’m making.God, I hate this.
Nicole leaves around eleven, taking the last bottle of wine with her and threatening to fight me if I “spiral emotionally into isolation.”Which is a reasonable threat from a best friend.
After she’s gone, the apartment feels too quiet again.I brush my teeth.Wash my face.Change into leggings and one of my old college sweatshirts before pausing as I shut the dresser drawer I was closing.
The box sits shoved toward the back.Old, dusty and forgotten.Well, maybe not forgotten.Maybe more like avoided.My chest tightens as I pull it free and carry it toward the bed.I open the lid and it’s like finding a time capsule.
Dance recital programs.My last pair of pointe shoe ribbons.Old Photos.Ticket stubs.A faded backstage laminate from one of Devil’s Halo’s earliest tours.And there, tucked between two old notebooks, a Polaroid of me and Hayden.
The image steals the air from my lungs.We look impossibly young.Me in frayed cutoffs and a Northwestern hoodie, my hair pulled into a high ponytail.Hayden in ripped jeans and black leather, one arm resting over my shoulder while he looks down at me instead of at the camera.
The expression on his face wrecks me in a way I don’t expect.Because even then,even thenhe looked at me like I mattered more than gravity.My thumb brushes across the edge of the photo.
