“Where did you learn to cook like this?” I ask, wine-flushed and too comfortable.
He grins. “This? Nothing. My grandmother taught me.”
“So, you’re modest and talented,” I tease. “You’re going to ruin men for me.”
He winks. “That’s the plan.”
Later, when he starts to clean up, I catch his wrist. “You don’t have to.”
He holds my gaze. Doesn’t move.
“I feel guilty,” I admit, voice barely there.
“For what?”
“This.”
“We haven’t done anything.”
“I know. I mean fuck. I don’t even know what I mean.”
“Guilt’s a funny thing, Penn,” he murmurs. “Usually it’s fed by pleasure, not laced with pain.”
He steps back, his fingers trailing mine, and I swear the air hums in his absence.
In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face, trying to clear the fog. My reflection stares back bruised, worn, unrecognisable.
“Write the story,” I whisper to her. “The way your grandmother would.”
When I return, he’s standing by the window, hands in his pockets, framed by the last light of day.
“I have to move through this,” I tell him softly. “But I don’t know if I do it alone... or with you.”
He wraps his arms around me from behind, our eyes meeting in the glass. “I only came because I heard you crying,” he says, voice thick. “I didn’t mean to... but when I saw you out there, broken in front of her grave, I couldn’t leave.”
He hesitates. “He’s so cold. And yet, he’s the love of your life. I see him in you in everything here. But I can wait. If that’s what you need.”
He kisses the back of my head, soft as a promise.
And when I turn around, he’s gone. Only the scent of him remains, warm, familiar, a dream laced in hope.
Walking intoourbar, the one he wants from me with my laptop and files clutched like armour, I have a plan. Not a good one, but one stitched together in desperation work, write, watch him. It’s pathetic. But then again, so am I. He’s still my heart, but my soul? She’s slipping out the back door without saying goodbye.
Last night, he sent Pandora messages, ones where he said he wanted tosee her, feel her, know her. I drowned into his pillow, sobbing rivers of salt and memory, clinging to the last thing that still smells like him.
I took our corner booth. The one he always saved for me. From here, I could watch him pour drinks and charm strangers. And he’d watch me write like I was magic. Like I was his muse.
Not anymore.
His eyes track me as I sit, opening the laptop like it’s a shield. I pull my notebook out, pages bloated with dialogue and delusion, scraps of a story I should’ve never lived. A story about a womanpretending to be a stranger just to feel seen by the man who once knew her better than air.
“Can I get you anything?” Her voice is sweet, too sweet, like rotting fruit. The same girl from the other day.
“My usual.” I don’t even blink at her. “Blake knows how I have it.”
She flinches at my tone, but I don’t care. Not today. Not anymore.
She returns with a latte and a spiced apple muffin. I glare at the plate like it slapped me. “I didn’t order that.”
