“Kyle…” I close my eyes because looking at him makes me reckless. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. What matters is what people will assume. What they’ll say about me. My entire career depends on perception and control.”
His inhale is sharp, like I just handed him something fragile he didn’t expect. Before he can speak, I force myself to finish. “You didn’t misread tonight.”
Hope flickers across his face and I turn to stare out the window, unable to look at him when I say the next pat. “But none of it can matter.”
“Why do you get to decide that?” he asks softly.
“Because the consequences fall on me, not you. I’m the one who gets torn apart online. I’m the one accused of sleeping my way into my job. I’m the one called manipulative for standing next to power. You get forgiven. I get fired.”
He doesn’t argue, and that hurts almost as much as everything else because he knows it’s true. When hefinally speaks, it’s barely a breath. “It feels like you’re walking away from me.”
“I’m not walking away fromyou,” I whisper. “I’m walking away from a version of my life that could cost me the future I worked for.”
“And what about the future youwant?” His voice is raw velvet, torn at the edges. “Does that not matter at all?”
It does. God, it does. Wanting him is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever felt. “I can’t afford to want anything I can’t keep,” I say, the words tearing out of me, “not even you.”
The sentence hangs between us like a fracture and a verdict. Kyle drags a hand over his face, leaning back against the seat, staring up like he needs the ceiling to hold him together. “So that’s it? We just sit here and pretend we didn’t break open in front of each other tonight?”
My chest caves so sharply I press a hand there, like I can hold the pieces still. “Please don’t make me say it again.”
He doesn’t answer, just turns his head toward the window, jaw tight, throat working like he’s swallowing glass.
The rest of the ride is unbearably full of everything we’re not saying. The car slows in front of my building, and the driver steps out to open the door. This is the last moment before I walk away from him again.
I reach for the handle, but his voice stops me.
“Alycia, if this is where you walk away… just know I’m not done.” His tone is quiet, steady, heartbreakingly sure. “I’m giving you space, but this is not goodbye.”
A tremor rolls through me so violently that I have to shut my eyes. I step out of the car before the truth can spill out.
The cold hits my bare shoulders like a reprimand. The door thunks shut behind me, sealing him inside that dim, quiet space where I left every version of the truth I was too afraid to say out loud.
My legs move before my brain catches up. One step, then another toward the glass doors of my building, the click of my heels too loud in the sleeping street. Neon from the corner bar washes the concrete in faded color, stretching my shadow into something long and thin and not quite mine.
I can feel him without turning around—the soft thud of the car door, then the sound of footsteps behind me. Not rushed or demanding, but close enough to guard the space, far enough not to crowd it. Kyle is walking me home without saying one word.
My fingers curl around the cool metal handle of the lobby door. For one wild second, I almost look back. If I do, I’ll take it all back. I’ll walk back to the car with him, climb into his life, and into a future I don’t get to have. I yank the door open and slip inside before my resolve can disintegrate on the curb.
The quiet hits harder than the cold. The security guard is gone for the night. The air smells faintly of lemon cleaner and old carpet—familiar, safe, suddenly suffocating. My hands shake as I jab the elevatorbutton harder than necessary. Through the glass, I see his reflection—just a blur of broad shoulders and worry—has hand grasping the door tightly in his. He must have caught it before it shut, lingering beneath the awning to make sure I made it safely inside.
When he sees me reach the elevator, he nods once and turns away, heading through the doors and toward the stairwell near the entrance. The door swings shut behind him just as the elevator arrives with a soft ding.
“I did the right thing,” I whisper as I step inside, like saying it out loud might convince my body to believe it.
I press my floor and rest my forehead on the cool metal of the elevator doors for the span of a breath that wobbles in and out of my lungs. My mascara is probably smearing against the stainless steel, one more mess to clean up later. My eyes focus on the numbers, watching them glow one by one as I rise away from the version of myself who let him hold her hand in a ballroom like it was the safest place in the world. That girl was reckless and open in ways I can’t afford to be.
The doors slide open to my floor. The hallway stretches ahead in muted light—cream walls, gray carpet, the low hum of someone’s TV bleeding through a door. Normal. Safe. A life I clawed my way into.
My keys rattle in my hand as I walk. Every step feels like walking out of a dream and straight into a life that suddenly doesn’t fit right against my skin. It takes me three tries to get the key into the lock as my visionblurs with hot, traitorous tears I refuse to let fall where anyone could see.
Just before the key finally catches, something pulls me to glance back over my shoulder, and that’s when I see Kyle standing by the stairwell door, a few paces behind me. He doesn’t say anything, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s holding the whole night together by force.
His eyes meet mine for half a heartbeat, wrecking me in ways I don’t have language for. Then he turns toward the stairwell, disappearing into the shadows without a single word.
The deadbolt finally clicks, and I shoulder the door open, shutting it quickly behind me like I can lock out everything I left on the curb. The instant the latch catches, my body caves. I lean back against the door, the wood solid against my spine, all the strength draining out of my legs like someone pulled the plug. My clutch slips from my fingers and hits the floor with a dull thud.
My breath shudders out, uneven and sharp, like it’s been trapped since the first flash went off outside.
