The bedroom was still too neat, too stark, but now it felt less like a sterile crime scene and more like… a reset button. The light spilled through the blinds in soft lines across the hardwood, and for the first time in forever, the screaming in my brain—about Mikel, about the cheating, about the what-now—took a backseat.
I looked around, planted my fuzzy-socked feet firmly on his terrifyingly expensive floor, and whispered to no one in particular, “Okay. This is mine too.”
Just for now. Just in this weird little pocket of time. But still—mine.
I took a breath. Then another. And with every inhale, the past felt smaller. With every exhale, I felt a little more like myself again.
Not broken. Not stupid. Just here. And that was enough.
I pushed open the bathroom door and froze as my reflection caught me mid-step. Yikes.
For a second, I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. She looked like she’d just walked off a movie set titled Emotional Apocalypse: Pajamas and Poor Life Choices. My hair was doing its own thing (bless it), my skin had that pale, stress-glow vibe, and my eyes—ugh. Dark circles for days. Like, if I smiled too hard, TSA would mistake them for carry-on luggage.
But then I looked closer. Past the chaos. Past the exhaustion and makeup-less honesty of my face.
She was still there. I was still there.
A little bruised. A little cracked. But—annoyingly—alive.
I leaned in and squinted at myself like I was solving a mystery. And maybe I was, because under all that wreckage from the Great Mikel Meltdown™, there was something simmering. Not weakness. Not failure.
Fire.
This is what leaving looks like, I thought, blinking at my puffy, tired reflection. Not with fireworks or middle fingers or dramatic speeches in the rain. Just… me. Breathing. Standing. Choosing myself for once without needing permission.
I took a deep breath. Not the shaky, teary kind either. A real one. Full of air and clarity and lavender-scented soap.
The girl in the mirror—messy bun, Nikolai’s giant shirt sliding off one shoulder, eyes still red but awake—she looked like someone who’d been through something.
But also like someone who was done with being small.
I smoothed the collar of his shirt. It felt ridiculously safe, like a warm barricade against everything sharp in the world. Which made no sense. It was just cotton and fabric softener and faint traces of Reaper cologne. But right now? It was armor.
“No more hiding,” I said to my reflection, voice low but sure.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn’t look scared. Just a little tired. A little pissed. And 100% done taking crumbs from anyone who couldn’t offer the whole damn cookie.
Including Mikel.
Especially Mikel.
I stood up straighter and gave myself a nod like, Okay. Let’s see who we can be now.
Then I stole Nikolai’s face cream from the counter.
Obviously.
I padded out of the hallway, still wrapped in Nikolai’s shirt like it was my official sad girl uniform, only to find him in the kitchen doing something shockingly domestic. The man who literally growled at a ref two nights ago was now standing in front of a microwave, reheating something in Tupperware like a grumpy suburban dad.
“Wow,” I said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Didn’t peg you for a leftover guy.”
He didn’t turn. Just calmly pressed a button. “It’s protein. Protein doesn’t expire.”
“Okay, that’s… definitely not how expiration works.”
He glanced over his shoulder, one brow raised, and I swear the corner of his mouth twitched. Just a little.
The microwave beeped. He grabbed two forks, handed me one without ceremony, and gestured to the kitchen island like we were an old married couple who did this every Tuesday.
