It was both the best time of my life and the worst time.
I was so much better off than I was three months ago in a financial sense, but I was worse than ever when it came to my heart.
No matter how cold Nash Nightingale had been to me, I still ached for him every day.
And Mia reminded me that she ached for him too.
“When Naff coming?”she asked over breakfast that morning, on day twenty of our separation.Not that I was counting or felt every second of it inside my broken heart.Somehow, even the plants seemed depressed that we were back here.I’d just finished putting everything back into its original place in our apartment, save the exotic plants Nash and I had picked out at the botanical garden.Those I’d left behind in the greenhouse he’d built for us, partly because they were associated with him now, and partly because they wouldn’t have lasted long in my Lower East Side apartment.
“Not today, sweetie.”I couldn’t even feign warmth in my voice when it came to this question.I had answered it so many times.I stopped thinking of creative responses days ago.I just didn’t have it in me anymore.
“When he come play with me?”
“I don’t know.”It broke my heart every time to hear it, reinforcing the ways in which I’d failed in my personal mission: protect Mia’s heart.
I hadn’t wanted her to get attached, and here we were.Both of us so attached that the day he broke up with me had felt more like an amputation than a relationship ending.And now Mia was drawing pictures of our family constantly: her, Nash, and me.Talk about heartbreak central.
Fuck.Fuck fuck fuck you, Nash.
Because despite it all, I only wanted him to show up at my doorstep and say that he’d had a change of heart.
But if he wouldn’t, if he truly didn’t care, then I needed to believe it was for the better.I didn’t have time for men who could walk away from me and Mia.That was for damn sure.
I wasn’t going to be crawling back to him after what he’d said to me.No way, no how.
I could do this alone.Iwoulddo this alone.
So that just meant I needed to muddle through the constant questions until Mia and I eventually forgot about Nash in roughly one hundred twenty-five years.
Great.
It didn’t help that nothing felt quite right in my old apartment.I felt like I was facing down a different version of me in these four walls.I had confidence I'd never had before—confidence Nash had helped me find.I had realized dreams I'd never dared to dream.
And I had a broken heart I had no idea how to fix.
So what did you do when a heart was broken?
You took action.And since I was quite fond of my hair and didn’t want to make a drastic change to my appearance, I chose a different type of action.
Obsessive research.
To be honest, it had started with Nash’s permit troubles for the Gideon project.Something seemed fishy with that permit revocation since the start, so I’d spent free time researching, doing deep dives, and getting lost in internet rabbit holes.It seemed like a win-win for me—cultivating skills that would only help me in my grad program and future career.But now that I was back in my apartment, about to go back to school and needing any excuse for a distraction, I found myself playing detective.
My “distraction research” had gone so far as me submitting FOIA requests and investigating the money trail on political campaigns.I’d certainly never had a breakup affect me like this before.I resumed attending the community meetings for the Queens neighborhood Nash had been protecting.By this point, it was habit.I’d been attending these since I entered Nash’s world, and it seemed wrong to stop even though Nash and I were done for.
The Queens project had been hitting mainstream media lately, mostly due to the fight between Cross Developments and Nightly Developments.The media loved this head-to-head battle, especially because there was a lawsuit involved and lots of salacious allegations that made good headlines.
But what was making headlines lately was that Nightly Developments was failing.Stalled projects.Humiliating blows to their egos in the form of missed deals, investors backing out.Losses upon losses.It hurt to hear and read, and it waseverywherethese days.If nothing else, I wanted to give Nash and Archer a hug and thank them for sticking to their morals when nobody else at their height seemed to do so.
But a hug didn’t solve problems.A hug didn’t fund their righteous battle.Only capital and cashflow and credit could sustain them.None of which I exactly had access to.
“The Nightingales are fighting for us.”The warbly voice of an elderly lady carried across the showroom floor of a former appliance store that had sat empty for a long time.Now, on cracked and dusty tiles, it was where the community gathered to stress over their future.“I spoke with Nash yesterday.Their lawsuit is underway.This will buy us all time.”
“But my eviction notice says I need to be out by the end of August,” one of the younger men in the crowd complained.“That’s no time at all.”
Throughout the months, I’d noticed the invested community members come together, form a chain of command, and create action plans alongside Nash and Archer.If nothing else, it was inspiring to observe.These people wanted to stay where they were.They didn’t want this weird bubble of wealth that Sebastian was promising—or rather, threatening.
“Where are the Nightingales?”someone else piped up.
