“Oh…honey.”
Her hand rests lightly on my shoulder, warm, grounding. A pause. A breath. The kind of silent understanding only she knows how to offer.
Then her phone rings, shattering the quiet. She groans, answering with that clipped authority she saves for chaos.
“Fuck. I gotta go fan a fire or rip someone’s head off. I’ll be back, give me five, okay? Or fuck, maybe ten.”
She holds up her fingers as she backs toward the door, smirking through the chaos. “This isn’t me bailing on you. This is me being a boss.”
A small, reluctant smile tugs at my lips. “I know. It’s fine.”
I wave her off, pretending I’m okay. Pretending I’m not falling apart.
The door clicks shut.
My phone dings.
New match.
Less than two kilometres away.
Right here inside this slick, glass cage of downtown Wellington.
I turn the screen face down on the desk.
I don’t want to know who it is.
I don’t want to hope it’s him.
But hope doesn’t listen.
Because deep down, Iknowit’s Blake.
Exactly two kilometres away.
That’s why we chose the bar where it is close enough to share morning tea, to meet for lunch, to walk home hand in hand. Close enough for stolen moments in that tiny office behind the bar, the one cluttered with beer crates and invoices and the ghost of our laughter.
My chest tightens.
Oh god, my heart.
My hands tremble as I hold the envelope his handwriting like a wound reopening.
I know, before I even break the seal, that he’s about to destroy what’s left of me.
I press the remote on my desk, and the glass walls tint, sealing me inside.
The city fades to shadow. The world goes dim.
And that’s when the tears come.
Not pretty ones.
Not cinematic or soft.
The ugly kind raw and shaking, ripped from somewhere deep.
The kind that leave salt trails down your neck and make you wish someone could hold you through the breaking.
