I worked for this worked to be the kind of man she could lean into. Worked to build something stable, something safe, something she could step into without losing herself.
But now I have to tell her the truth.
And I have never been more afraid in my life.
The glass fogs under my breath.
One hand curls tight around the glass. Lime drips down my wrist.
“Penn,” I whisper, like a prayer I don’t deserve. “Please…see me.”
The city doesn’t answer.
But somewhere, beneath the noise and glow and distance, I feel her. Like a pull. Like a thread. Like home.
I text her before I can talk myself out of it.
You awake, Peach?
I stare at the screen a little too long. It’s pathetic how my pulse kicks like I’m eighteen and she’s the first girl who ever looked at me.
She replies after a minute that feels like hours.
Yeah. Couldn’t sleep. You?
I don’t tell her why I’m awake. I don’t tell her where I am. Not yet.
Long day. Thought I’d check in.
Check in. Christ. If she knew how badly I wanted to climb inside her chaos and make a home there, she’d block me out of self-defence.
The phone lights my face in the dark bedroom. The sheets are still cold. Melbourne hums outside my window — a low, metallic vibration, the kind that sinks into your bones if you’ve lived here long enough.
She types.
Stops.
Types again.
You good? You sound… I don’t know. Off.
She can read me too fucking well.
Or maybe I’ve been starving for someone to see me, and she just happened to be the one who bothered to look long enough.
I’m fine. Just tired. What’re you doing?I send it before I can rewrite it into something less revealing.
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Reappear.
She’s thinking too much which means she’s thinking about me.
Good.
I picture her lying there, curled into the half-light of her room, hair messy on her pillow, chewing her bottom lip like she does when she doesn’t trust her own thoughts.
