“And you can’t do it right now.” Bri finishes gently.
I shake my head, throat tight. “I can’t. Not yet.”
Bri leans forward, voice soft but firm. “You need space. A breather. But if you care about him,really care, you have to let him explain eventually. Otherwise, you’ll just torture yourself with what-ifs.”
I swallow hard, staring at my glass.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I know.”
My chest aches. My heart feels bruised. But I nod anyway.
“Not today. But… eventually.”
Monday, I call in sick. I can’t see him. I can’t breathe around the idea of seeing him.
My phone has been lighting up since sunrise, calls, texts, each one a spark against a raw nerve.
Rogue:
Kitten, I woke up reaching for you.
Rogue:
I miss you already. Please answer me. Don’t shut me out.
Rogue:
Catalina, you are the most important thing in my life right now. Please don’t give up on us before you let me explain.
Rogue:
You don’t owe me a reply right now, but I need you to know I would never hurt you on purpose. I care about you more than I know how to say.
Rogue:
I never lied about how I feel. Not once.
I flip my phone face down on the kitchen counter and walk away from it.
I clean instead. Closet purge. Donation piles. Old T-shirts I once thought I looked good in. Jeans that hold a memory of a body I used to hate.
Silence makes everything louder, but music is too much, too bright, too chaotic, so I move through the apartment in stillness, folding pieces of old versions of myself, trying to make space for a world that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
Bri is at work. Marianna hovers in the background, orbiting me with quiet loyalty, bringing trash bags, taking full ones away, checking in once an hour without asking questions. Just presence. Just love.
It’s barely noon when she knocks on my door and cracks it open.
“You’ve got company,” she murmurs.
Panic flickers. Rogue? No. She wouldn’t let him in.
Right?
She pushes the door wider, and June steps in holding a takeout bag and her laptop, wearing a small, gentle smile.
“I brought lunch,” she says. “And juice. And… company, if you want it.”
Something inside me breaks again, the kind made of gratitude.
