Ipush the door closed behind the three menaces that may have helped change the trajectory of my entire life, pressing my head against it with a thud. A few minutes ago, this place was loud with women who refused to let me fall apart alone.
Ramona pacing like a general planning a siege. Michele squeezing me so tight my ribs popped. Alise cupping my jaw like she was checking to make sure I still had bones left after the day I’d had. I had to practically bribe them with text updates to get them to leave, but not without promising not to spiral while waiting to hear from Alycia. I told them I would try, and that was the best I could do.
Now that I’m alone, the places Alycia isn’t standing are too present in the room. It’s just me, the couch, the low buzz of panic under my skin, and the glow of my phone replaying the video in an endless loop I can’t seem to break. Every time I tell myself I’ll put it away, I hit play again. Every time I tell myself I’ll stoprefreshing the comments, I swipe down and refresh anyway.
I’m ready to go to war, bracing for the worst the internet can throw at us. I’ll sit here all night, replying to strangers who think they get to pick her apart, ready to set my career on fire defending her if I have to. Except half the time I open the comment thread, someone else has already beaten me there. Every new defense of her is a punch and a balm at the same time. It kills me that she needs it. It heals something in me that they’re offering it anyway.
I refresh again and again, looking for her name, for a sign she’s seen it, that she knows she’s not bleeding alone anymore. That she knows I meant every word and every tremor in my voice. But there’s nothing. I check our messages, finding the last thing I sent sitting unanswered:
I didn’t say I loved you because of PR. I said it because it’s true.
She’s probably in a glass-walled conference room trying to decide if she has to tear her entire life down to protect mine. The thought makes my skin feel too tight. I scrub both hands over my face and lean back into the couch, head tipping against the cushion. My body is exhausted, but my brain refuses to shut off. It keeps looping through every version of her I know: her in the elevator, chin high, eyes blazing, ripping into me without caring who I was.
Her in the PR office, hands moving fast, voicecalm, saving my ass with a composure I didn’t deserve. Her this morning, in my doorway, saying she’d still choose me even if the world tore her apart for it.
I meant every word in that video. Even if she never speaks to me again, they’ll still be true. I’m halfway through another mindless scroll when a violent, frantic pounding rattles the door, like someone is using both fists because one isn’t enough.
“Kyle!” Alycia's voice breaks slightly at the end before the pounding resumes. “Kyle, please—open the door!”
My phone hits the couch and bounces to the floor, forgotten. She pounds again, harder this time, the sound cracking straight through me. “Kyle,please!”
I’m moving before my mind catches up, sprinting across the living room, socks sliding on the hardwood as my hand slams against the doorknob. My pulse is so loud I barely hear the last desperate hit against the door before ripping it open, and she practically falls forward with the momentum.
She’s shaking so hard her coat slips off one shoulder. Her eyes are red as if she cried the entire way here. Her chest is rising and falling too fast. Her hands are fists at her sides, trembling with adrenaline and fear and something so raw it hits me like a punch.
“Alycia—”
“I couldn’t—” She gasps the words out, voice wrecked. “I couldn’t stay there. I needed to see you.”
Every defensive instinct in me detonates at once. I reach out and catch her face in both hands, steadyingher before she collapses under whatever storm she fought through to get here. She grips the front of my shirt with both fists, knuckles white, dragging me down like she thinks I might disappear if she doesn’t anchor me to her. Her breath is hot and uneven against my collarbone as she shakes her head like she’s apologizing for the state she’s in.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice shredding. “I know I shouldn’t just show up like this. I know I shouldn’t run. I just… Kyle, I couldn’t let you think I didn’t?—”
Her voice breaks clean in half, and she lets out a sound that kills me.
“It’s okay,” I whisper fiercely, forehead dropping to hers, my thumbs brushing the wetness beneath her eyes. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re here. I’ve got you.”
She lets out a trembling exhale, like her whole body is trying to release a scream she swallowed hours ago. “I tried to be strong, to be the version of me that doesn’t fall apart, but then I saw the video again, and I saw you say—” Her breath stutters. “I saw you say you loved me, and I realized I couldn’t spend another second pretending I wasn’t already running toward you.”
Her fists clutch my shirt even tighter.
“I had to come,” she whispers. “I didn’t even grab my keys the first time—I ran out of my office and had to go back. I couldn’t think. I just needed you. I needed to be here.”
“Alycia,” I breathe, voice rough, shaking from the force of it. “I’m right here.”
Her whole body trembles against mine, and for a second, I just hold her there in the doorway, trying to anchor her breathing to mine. I can feel her heart pounding so hard that it stutters against my chest.
“Come inside,” I murmur, guiding her with my hands at her waist.
She moves like someone whose legs haven’t made a decision in minutes, jerky, unsteady, but never pulling away. I close the door behind us, and the moment the latch catches, she surges forward again, fingers fisting in the front of my shirt like she needs to hold on or she’ll come apart completely.
“I couldn’t let you think I didn’t—” Her breath fractures on the next word. “That I didn’t believe you.”
I slide one hand to the back of her head, cradling her skull, thumb stroking a slow line behind her ear. “Believe what?”
“That you meant it.” Her voice breaks again. “That you meant all of it.”
I tilt her chin up with gentle fingertips, and the moment her eyes lift to mine. “I meant every word.”
