It’s muscle memory, but my head’s nowhere in it. I can’t stop replaying her face when she threw that ring—the hollow, breaking look that matched the day her parents died.
What the hell was I thinking?
The guilt’s a living thing now, gnawing from the inside. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. Not with her finding out this way. I should’ve ended it before it ever started—hell, I should’ve never touched Elaine at all. Should’ve been stronger. Should’ve been the man she thought I was.
I walk the hallway, every step making it feel narrower, closing in on me. Laughter spills from the neighbor’s apartment, distant and warped, like it belongs to another world. The parking garage is colder than I expect, the echo of my boots loud in the emptiness.
The engine roars to life under me, too loud for the dead of night, but I need it. I need the wind to claw at me, strip me raw, and drown out the sound of her voice telling me to burn in hell.
I drop into the curve too fast for the weight I’m hauling, the back tire twitching like it’s ready to throw me. The bike growls deep, a warning I don’t take. I lean harder, gunning it, chasing the edge where rubber and pavement stop trusting each other.
Streetlights flash and vanish, every one a flicker of her face—the way her eyes cut me open, the ring hitting my chest, her voice spitting fire and damnation. I twist the throttle until my hands ache, until the wind claws at me hard enough to steal my breath.
Another corner. Too sharp. Too fast. The frame shudders, metal grinding somewhere deep, but I don’t back off. Let it buck. Let it throw me. Maybe the road would be kinder than the look she gave me before she slammed the door.
But then I’m straightening out, the street opening up in front of me, and the adrenaline drains all at once—leaving me hollow, shaking, breath ragged inside my helmet. I slow withoutthinking, the engine’s roar fading to a low, steady hum. My hands won’t stop trembling. I came closer than I want to admit to letting it all end right there.
I don’t point the bike toward Stella’s. I don’t even think about it. My body moves on instinct, and before I know it, I’m pulling into the underground lot of the apartment I never gave up. The place I told her I kept for storage, for convenience—the place where Elaine and I first started.
The key feels heavier than it should when I pull it from my pocket. I shove it into the lock, turn it, and the door swings open to the dark.
The air is stale. Quiet. Too quiet. No hum of the fridge, no ticking clock. Just the soft creak of the floor under my boots as I step inside. The smell hits me first—faint, but enough. Her perfume. Elaine’s. It clings to the walls, soaks into the couch cushions, and hides in the carpet.
Every shadow here has teeth. The spot on the counter where she sat the first night. The chair she tipped back in when she laughed. The bedroom door I never bothered closing when we were together.
I tell myself not to look, but my eyes drag that way anyway. The bed’s made now, but it doesn’t matter. I can still see it—the mess we left, the sweat cooling on my skin, the exact moment I crossed the line so deep I couldn’t see the shore anymore.
It’s not just guilt anymore. It’s a flood—a goddamn riptide. I thought I could handle it, carry it, and keep it boxed up where Stella would never see it. But she saw. She saw everything.
I sink down onto the couch like my knees just gave out, elbows on my thighs, hands in my hair. The helmet sits on the coffee table, visor staring back at me like an accusation.
There’s no wind here to strip me raw. Just the echo of her voice, the ring hitting my chest, the way she looked at me like I wasn’t just a stranger—I was the enemy.
And she’s right.
I walk into my kitchen and lunge for the cabinet without turning on the light, fingers closing around the neck of my favorite bourbon. I don’t bother with a glass—just twist the cap, tip it back, and let the burn rip through my throat until it’s almost unbearable.
The phone’s in my hand before I even think about it. I thumb out three words to Mac:I fucked up.My finger hovers over the screen for half a second, but I can’t bring myself to add anything else. I don’t want to see the questions come in. I don’t want to see anything. I set it facedown.
The bourbon hits again and again until my chest feels hot and my head’s buzzing. Then my eyes catch on the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch—the one she always wrapped herself in here.
Something in me snaps.
It starts with the blanket—her blanket—yanked off the couch and thrown into the corner like it’s on fire. Then the wine glasses in the sink, the ones she always insisted on using here. Shattered. The picture frame she brought over, smiling like she belonged. Down, the glass spiderwebbing across the hardwood. Her lipstick-stained mug, the perfume bottle she left on my dresser, the hair tie looped sitting on the nightstand.
One by one, I rip Elaine out of this place until it looks like she never stepped inside.
The bourbon bottle clinks against the counter as I set it down, my hands shaking.
The apartment’s stripped bare now, but it doesn’t help. Her perfume still clings to the air. And underneath it, stubborn as a scar, is something worse—the more I erase Elaine, the more Stella’s face is all I see.
The bourbon burns going down, but it’s not enough. I pour again. And again. Until the edges of the room start to blur, untilthe pounding in my head drowns out every other sound. I don’t remember sitting on the floor or when the bottle went from full to empty. I just remember staring at the ceiling, the room spinning slowly, my chest aching like someone’s pressing their boot down on it.
At some point, the dark takes me.
When I wake, my mouth tastes like ash, and my phone’s buzzing against the hardwood. My eyes crack open to the glow of the screen—a wall of notifications.
Starting with Mac.
