The lie tastes sour, but the three dots that appear immediately are worse. He’s right there, waiting, watching. Has he been staring at his screen all night too?
Psycho Bastard: Feel better. I’ll call tomorrow.
Pin it, pin it, pin it.
Sunlight fills the apartment, harsh and unforgiving. I should get up. I should clean. I should shower and eat something and remember how to be a person who doesn’t feel like they’re drowning in still water.
Instead, I lie here, cataloging the mess like it’s evidence of a crime scene. My crime scene. The scene where Raven Carter finally did the one thing she promised herself she never would—got attached. Expected something. Hoped.
At some point, I must doze off because when I open my eyes again, the light has shifted. It’s coming in at a different angle, painting stripes across my bedroom wall instead of my bed.
My phone shows three more texts where he offers to come by, and the last one asking if I’m okay. I’m not.
Sunday blurs into nothing. I pace. I scroll mindlessly through social media. None of it registers. There’s just this hollow pit in my stomach that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with shame.
Because that’s what this feeling is—not heartbreak. Heartbreak would be too romantic, too justifiable. This is shame. The sharp, acrid taste of knowing better and doing it anyway. Of walking right into the bear trap with both eyes open.
I check my phone again. Again. Again. There’s a text from Leo asking about my week, and I can’t even bring myself to answer that. What would I say? Hey twin, I fell for the Mob boss I stole from, and he played me like a fucking violin? No thanks.
Monday morning, I wake with a start, my hand already reaching for my phone. Seven-thirty. I have a meeting in two hours.
I call in sick. My voice is actually raspy from disuse, so it doesn’t even feel like lying when I tell Holston I’ve caught some bug and that I’ll keep him updated.
It takes eighteen minutes to walk from my bed to the kitchen. Not because my apartment is huge—it’s decidedly not—butbecause I keep stopping. Staring. Forgetting where I was going or why I stood up in the first place.
I’d call it dissociation if I were feeling clinical, but I’m not. I’m feeling nothing and everything at once.
The coffee I make tastes like nothing. I leave the mug half-full on the counter, where it joins two others from yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Time’s getting slippery.
“You’re being pathetic,” I tell the empty apartment. My voice sounds wrong, too loud in the quiet. “So he used you for a job. So what? It’s not like you didn’t know what he is.”
But that’s not it, is it? He said he loved me. Love. Me. Not my perfect ass, not my stupid sense of humor.Me.You don’t send loved ones into the bathroom to square off with… other people.
And what was with the Tony shit? Was it really that much harder to prepare me by saying Antonia? Is Matteo Russo cursed and only has a certain number of letters he can pronounce before becoming a mute? No, I don’t fucking think so.
The anger comes in waves. At him for the manipulation. At me for falling for it. At Tony and her perfect fucking hair.
I check my phone. Nothing new from Matteo. Just yesterday’s concern. Well, isn’t that just insulting? I don’t want to hear from him. But I want him to want to hear from me. Is that really too much to ask?
Despite my best attempts to pin it, I fail. There are no pins left, no neat little boxes to compartmentalize this humiliation into. It spills out, messy and insistent, refusing to be contained.
The TV flickers with some mindless reality show—hot people on a hot island doing hot people things. I’ve been staring at it for an hour, maybe two. I couldn’t tell you a single thing that’s happened.
My mind keeps circling back to the restaurant, to the moment the door opened and the first cracks appeared in what I’dstupidly thought was a date. My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Matteo again.
Psycho Bastard: How are you feeling, Little Thief? Do you need anything?
My stomach flips over, a sickening lurch that has nothing to do with my fake stomach bug. My hands are shaking as I pick up the phone, then set it down again without responding.
I need air. I need space. I need to be anywhere but here, trapped in this apartment with all these feelings I never wanted.
I’m almost at the door when someone knocks. Two sharp, controlled raps that reverberate through the wood and straight down my spine. I know that knock. Of course I do.
My breath locks in my chest. For a split second I swear I hear the memory of splintering wood, remembering the way he broke in last time like the lock was a suggestion instead of a boundary.
I’m so not ready to deal with him yet.
My pulse hammers so hard it feels like it might shake the hinges loose all on its own. He’s going to kick it in, flashes through my mind, wild and panicked, and… angry. I don’t want him here.
