Giving Skylar space sounds noble until you are the one sitting in the silence, wondering whether she is using that space to remember every reason she should stay the fuck away from you. Every reason why touching me again was a terrible fucking idea, wrapped in old feelings and bad impulse control.
The not knowing is its own kind of punishment. It gets under my skin, sits there, and starts whispering shit I don’t need to think about.
I look at my phone again and stare at Cassie’s very unsubtle attempt to throw me in Skylar’s direction while pretending she’s not absolutely doing just that.
The woman sent an address. There is no universe in which that is casual. Subtlety has never been Cassie’s thing. Neither has minding her own business apparently.
Unfortunately, I am starting to think those might be two of her best qualities.
I’m glad Skylar has Cassie in her life. That is the truest and simplest thing I can say about this entire fucking mess. Whatever happens between us. Whatever Skylar decides. Whether she lets me near her again or decides that one night with me was enough to remind her I come with too much damage and not nearly enough warning labels, I am glad she has Cassie.
Skylar needed someone who stayed. She got Cassie. Loud, nosy, stubborn Cassie, who apparently treats boundaries as gentle suggestions and emotional interference as a civic duty.
I should hate it, but I don’t.
I get up before I can talk myself out of it.
Rainer’s voice slips straight into my head, calm, gravelly, and inconvenient as fuck.Give her space, son.
I am giving her space.
Mostly.
Kind of.
In a way that may not hold up in court, but still feels emotionally sound if no one studies the evidence too closely. Because going to her is not deciding for her. I’m not showing up to drag answers out of her. I am not kicking the door open and demanding that she hand me all the pieces of herself she’s still trying to keep safe from me.
I’m just showing up. That’s all.
Showing up. Knocking. Letting her decide whether I stay or whether she tells me to fuck off, taking my unresolved emotional damage with me.
Those are different things. Different enough that I can almost convince myself I am not a complete fucking idiot.
I grab a quick shower, scrubbing the sweat off my skin as my head runs through every possible version of what happens next. None of them are good.
Skylar could tell me to leave. She could shut the door in my face. She could stand there with those tired eyes and that sharp mouth, reminding me that one night does not fix seven years of shit.
She would be right, too. All of it would fucking hurt, but it would be fair.
I turn off the water, dry off quickly, and pull on a clean shirt and my best jeans before I give myself too much time to think. Thinking has never done me any favors where Skylar is concerned. It just hands my heart a shovel and tells it to dig deeper.
I grab my jacket from the hook behind the door and shove my phone into my pocket. Then I leave before courage has time to sober up and talk me out of it.
The street outside is doing what streets always do at this hour. Moving. Breathing. Acting as if every person on it has somewhere important to be and a clear fucking idea of what will happen when they get there.
People spill out of office buildings, their faces tired, ties loosened, and eyes dead, as if they have spent eight hours pretending their inbox was not slowly eating their soul. Cars crawl along the curb, impatient and loud, their horns snapping through the evening air because apparently no one in this city can sit still for three seconds without making it everybody else’s problem.
A bus hisses at the stop ahead of me, its doors folding open to swallow a line of people who seem as worn out as I feel.
I walk with my hands in my pockets, Cassie’s address lodged in my head.
Three blocks down. Left at the lights. Another two blocks after that. Easy. Simple.
The city moves around me, completely unaware that I am trying to figure out what the hell I’m even supposed to say when Skylar opens the door.
Usually, I have words. A smart comment. A blunt truth. Some bullshit sharp enough to cut through the quiet and make people look away from the mess beneath. Words have always been useful that way. A decent distraction. A quick exit. A nice little verbal smoke bomb for a man with no idea how to stand still in something real. But with Skylar, everything gets stuck behind my ribs.
I pass a coffee shop with fogged windows, people crowded around small tables, laughing into cups they hold with both hands. All those people sitting there with their ordinary lives and their ordinary little problems, which probably don’t involve knocking on the door of the woman they have loved and fucked over in equal measure.
