I stood on the stoop with my keys in my hand, staring at the street like it might offer an explanation. King Street was still alive—tourists drifting, couples laughing, the occasional bachelorette pack tottering past in heels. Charleston always looked like a postcard someone had learned how to animate.
I could’ve walked home. I usually did. Two blocks. Easy.
Instead, I went to my car.
Not because I needed it.
Because movement helped. Because sitting still felt dangerous. Because if I went home and listened too closely to my own thoughts, they would circle back to him the way they had allday—quiet, relentless, as if my brain had latched onto the shape of his presence and decided it mattered.
I drove around town. Down streets I didn’t need. Past places that had nothing to do with me. The Battery, where the water looked endless. The porches of old houses, soft music drifting from somewhere. The kind of evening that made you believe people could fall in love just because the air was romantic enough.
I laughed once, alone in the car, because that wasn’t how it worked.
Not for me.
For me, it had always been practical. Slow. Careful. I liked careful.
Careful kept you from looking foolish.
Careful kept you from wanting someone who didn’t want you back.
Careful kept you from handing pieces of yourself to people who didn’t know what to do with them.
Finally, I parked behind my building and climbed the stairs to my condo, each step oddly loud. The hallway smelled faintly like sugar from the bakery downstairs, like someone had baked comfort into the walls. Usually that scent settled me.
Tonight, it didn’t.
Inside, the place felt too quiet.
I locked the door twice. Then a third time, because my hands were busy and my mind wasn’t. I set my bag down, crossed to the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water I didn’t drink. I stood there staring at it, like hydration was going to fix what was happening inside me.
It wasn’t.
I was still buzzing.
Not with nerves exactly.
With awareness.
With the uncomfortable sense that something in me had been … noticed.
And once something was noticed, it was hard to pretend it wasn’t there.
I walked into my bedroom, switched on the lamp, and sat on the edge of the bed the way I always did when I needed to think. Straight-backed. Hands folded. Like if I held myself in place, the rest of me would follow.
But it didn’t.
My body kept flashing back to the way he’d stood on that path. Still. Built like a threat. Quiet like he didn’t waste words on people he didn’t consider worth them.
And when he’d looked at me—really looked at me—it hadn’t been the usual Charleston male gaze I’d gotten my whole life. Not the easy flirtation, not the “you’re so sweet,” not the harmless appreciation that lived safely on the surface.
His attention had weight.
Like it could press fingerprints into you.
And I hated myself a little for wanting it again.
I stripped off my jeans and blouse and changed into sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt. My movements were too quick, too efficient, like I was trying to outrun my own skin. When I caught my reflection in the mirror—bare legs, damp hair from the humidity, cheeks still a little pink—I paused.
