Okay, that one? That was her.
That wasPandora.
It was gritty, raw, a little dangerous. Nothing like the shattered girl currently sitting in an oversized hoodie with mascara tears drying like war paint on her cheeks.
I scribbled more into my journal.
“Let’s get lost on back roads with the windows down. Let’s pretend this isn’t fake.”
Too honest. Delete.
“I’m the girl your mother warned you about. I light matches just to watch things burn.”
Closer.
This whole assignment had started as a pitch forThe Pulse—a six-part feature exploring dating apps from the inside. But now, I wasn’t sure where Penn ended and Pandora began. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I needed to burn something down just to feel something other than his absence.
I snapped the laptop shut with a soft curse, tossed the phone and journal onto his pillow, and collapsed backward into the duvet like gravity had finally won.
Darkness swept in. My thoughts churned.
You’re really doing this, Penn. You’re becoming a ghost. A stranger to even yourself. All for a story...
Except maybe, deep down, this wasn’t for work.
Maybe this was survival.
As I sank into the mattress, fingers brushing over the hollow space where his body once slept, I whispered:
“Let’s open the box, Pandora.”
And just like that, the game began.
Sitting at the bar, laptop open and coffee cooling in front of me, I watched the world blur past through watery eyes. An old man took the seat across from me. Our eyes met—his holding a small, knowing smile and a lifetime of stories.
He opened his mouth and asked, ever so gently, “Why does it look like you’ve got a broken heart?”
“How did you know?” I asked, blinking fast. “Is it really that obvious?”
He touched my hand, his voice soft but steady. “You’re not the first to take your coffee with tears, my love.”
So, I told him. I told him about the boy who stole my heart all those years ago. The keeper of my soul. The light to my dark.
The boy who now watches me while wiping down the bar.
The boy who never really left me, even when he vanished.
Who stopped answering my calls, maybe scared he’d find tears waiting on the other end.
I glanced at Blake. He looked tired. Not sad, just… worn. Not as sad as the woman I saw staring back at me in the reflection of my coffee cup.
The old man’s thumb rubbed over the back of my hand, coaxing my eyes back to his. I took a deep breath.
“What should I do?” I whispered. “Should I leave, just get in my car and drive far away? Let him go? Or should I fight?”
His gaze burned into mine. So much wisdom buried in the deep, old-soul blue of his eyes. He inhaled slowly and said, “I just read in the papers they’re sending people to the stars now lass. Maybe you should take his hand, fly past the moon… Forget the pain. Wipe your tears. Let Mars mend your broken heart.”
A breathless kind of silence filled the space between us.
