Page 30 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

Lewis had never really seen her. In fact, Vivi didn’t think he even tried. He took her for granted in ways she hadn't let herself admit until now. Taking a new job without asking if she wanted to uproot her life, selling the apartment they'd shared without a single conversation about what she wanted or where she’d go or even how she’d fit into the plan. Packing up her things and shipping them off. He acted like she'd just follow along behind him, always being okay with whatever he decided. Like her life, her wants and needs were negotiable.

And Singapore, of all places. It was a whole ocean away, which would mean uprooting herself from everyone she loved, all for a man who didn't seem to notice she had a life of her own. The thought made her chest tighten and her stomach twist.

Then there was the inconvenient realization that she wasn't just drawn to Boone, she was drawn to the woman she became around him. The version of herself who didn’t have to try to be seen—really seen. Around him she felt electric in a way she hadn't known she'd been missing.

Suddenly everything else, the comfort, the predictability, the polite and careful love Lewis offered, it felt like a cage she didn't want to live in any longer.

She sat back and let out a slow, shaky breath. This wasn't about Boone. Not really. It was about her. About realizing she'd spent her whole life compromising—sliding into someone else's plan while ignoring her own instincts and her own needs.

Vivi traced the rim of her coffee cup, thinking about the tiny choices she'd pushed aside, the laughter she'd swallowed, the moments she'd made herself smaller to keep the peace.

She wanted to stop apologizing for wanting more. For wanting her own path and wanting to feel alive in her own skin again. The person she'd become around Lewis was nice, reliable, and careful—but not her true, untempered herself.

Maybe Lewis would be shocked or hurt, but she was tired of deferring to someone else's life plan. She was ready to make her own decisions, to stake her claim on her own freedom, to take up space without asking permission first. And as scary as it felt, as heartbreaking as it might be to say out loud, she knew what had to happen.

She had to call it off.

Ten minutes later, Vivi stared at her coffee like it might give her courage if she looked hard enough. Her phone rested on the table, screen open to Lewis's contact, and she felt the familiar flutter in her chest that had nothing to do with caffeine. She'd rehearsed this speech—fifteen, maybe twenty times—but now that the words were real, they felt impossibly clumsy like she was trying to wrangle that stubborn calf all over again.

Every day brought her closer to the thirty-day cutoff, and she needed to make some decisions and make them fast or life was going to make them for her—and it had a terrible track record.

Vivi's thumb hovered over Lewis's number for a full thirty seconds before she finally pressed Call. The line rang and rang until—mercifully—he answered.

"Vivi, it's three in the morning. Why are you calling?" His voice was rough with sleep, clearly irritated, and a just a tad dismissive. Just like every time lately that she tried to tell him something that mattered. She knew he was busy with his new job, and the time difference was making it hard on …

Nope! She wasn't doing that again. She was done making excuses for his dismissive and sometimes hurtful behavior.

"I'm okay, don't worry," she said, voice dry as dust. "I'm calling to tell you I'm not coming to Singapore." She tried to keep her tone calm, but the words felt like a jackhammer in her chest.

"What?" He was suddenly awake.

"I’m not moving to Singapore and I'm not your girlfriend."

A long sigh—the kind that somehow made her chest tighten. "Can you tone it down? You're being a bit much right now."

A bit much?

She could practically hear the casual shrug behind it. The way he'd brushed off her feelings before and treated her life like a footnote to his own.

She channeled every ounce of Rea and the sharp, unapologetic woman Vivi was still learning to be.

"Too much? You know what, Lewis? Go find less." Her voice shook at first, then steadied. "I'm not a discount version of myself. It's time I stopped wasting time with someone who's irrelevant to my future. If I want the world to treat me better, I need to treat myself better first." A breath. "Goodbye, Lewis. Good luck on your new chapter. I know I'm looking forward to mine."

CHAPTER 13

Vivi had never been a fixer.

She was a caretaker. The kind who noticed when someone skipped lunch, remembered birthdays no one else did, and quietly made sure the world kept spinning while everyone around her unraveled. She didn't charge in with solutions. Instead, she showed up with snacks, backup plans, and a steady presence that said you're not alone.

But this? This was way outside her comfort zone. It required action and hard lines—decisions that didn't come with a care-and-feeding manual—and that scared her more than she liked to admit.

Fixing Boone's problem wasn't about pep talks or polite emails. It meant getting her hands dirty in a world that didn't run on charm or checklists. It meant risking failure.

Worse, it meant risking him seeing her fail and that was about as far from her comfort zone as a girl could get without packing a helmet and a flare gun.

But that was today's Glow Up exercise: Break Up with Your Comfort Zone.

She was four-and-O and didn't want to ruin her winning streak. Plus, she was still riding the high from yesterday's call with Lewis. Every time she thought about the way she'd spoken her truth, the clarity in her own words, she felt a rush of pride that made her chest swell.