God, he’s something to look at. That’s never been in question.
Tall, broad across the shoulders. His hair is still damp from the shower. His shirt is unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled to his forearms, where you can see the edge of the ink he keeps hidden under business shirts and boardroom jackets. A sleeve on his right arm, intricate work that costs real money. He had them done young, he told me once, before he knew what he wanted to be. Before he decided that what he wanted to be was the kind of man who wore them out of sight. Even his rebellion is controlled.
He looks collected from a distance. Polished enough to sell trust. But up close, the cracks show.
I used to think those cracks made him human. That beneath the performance, the polish, and the particular confidence of a man who had never once been told no, there was something real worth reaching for. Something that all that money, ease, and carefully managed charm was just protecting.
Now I wonder how many women have cut themselves trying to touch those cracks. And whether any of them had the sense to stop before I did.
It has been a few days since Cassie’s call.
She has sent a couple of texts. The kind Cassie sends when she’s thinking about you but doesn’t want to make it a big deal. A meme at midnight, that kind of thing. I haven’t seen her. Not the way I’d like to, sitting across from her like we used to, saying everything and nothing at the same time.
I miss her more than I let on.
But that conversation we had hasn’t left me.
I’ve tried to put it down the way you set down something heavy when your arms give out. But it rises anyway, dragging old grief up with it every time. In the shower, standing under water too hot to be comfortable, staring at the tiles. At this sink, handsmoving through the motions of a life I built to look a certain way. In Damien’s bed in the dark, lying still beside a man who is already asleep. Behind every smile I press into place when it’s required of me.
Cassie’s words.
Zane’s name.
The way she said I don’t laugh anymore.
I keep trying to push it down, but it keeps coming back up.
Zane is somewhere in this town.
That thought alone is enough to undo something in me I’ve spent years stitching shut. He’s here. Breathing the same air, probably standing over an engine at Rainer’s, grease under his nails and that mouth he used to pretend only knew how to smirk. The one that went soft sometimes, when he thought I wasn’t watching.
Maybe he’s changed.
Seven years changes people. It hollows some out and hardens others.
Or maybe he hasn’t changed at all.
I know I have. I can see it when I glance in the mirror long enough to be honest about what’s looking back. The girl I used to be is still there somewhere. I can sense her sometimes, pressing against the inside of my ribs like she’s trying to find a way back out.
The plate slips in my hand and knocks into another as I load it into the dishwasher.
Damien’s head turns. His eyes find mine across the apartment as he still listens to whoever is on the other end of the call. There’s a glare in them, the particular expression from a man who has decided that your inconvenience is something he tolerates rather than welcomes.
I glance away first.
I always look away first now.
I don’t know exactly when that started. When the instinct to hold ground became the instinct to yield before the cost of holding it got too high. And the worst part: I do it without thinking. It’s become a reflex.
The old me would have stared him down until he blinked or bled. Now I load his dishwasher in silence as my boyfriend comes home, smelling of another woman’s perfume, and tells me I’m in a mood.
Damien ends the call with a sharp jab from his finger.
“Fuck.”
The word cracks across the apartment like something hurled against a wall and I feel it land between my shoulder blades.
I wipe the counter. It’s already clean. It’s been that way for ten minutes. But my hands need something to do. The motion is familiar, and familiar is what I reach for when everything else is too loud to navigate.
