He sat a few rows behind me, off to the right, his head tipped back just slightly as he watched the stage.The corner of his mouth curved in a way I knew by heart.Not the controlled smile he wore in meetings.This was real.
Creed.
My breath caught so hard it hurt, hope and longing tangled in my chest.He’d come.He had kept his promise to the girls.
For a reckless second, I wondered if he’d come looking for me.
My fingers curled in my lap as a thousand thoughts crashed through me at once.Maybe after the show.Maybe just a few minutes.Enough time to explain.To apologize.To tell him how wrong I’d been.
I waited, longer than was reasonable, for his attention to shift.Surely, he felt me.Surely, he knew where I was sitting.
But he never looked at me.
His attention stayed on the stage, on the pumpkins singing their hearts out, on everything except the woman who had broken his trust.I told myself he was just focused on the stage.That it didn’t mean anything yet.
But when the final song ended and applause filled the room, he stood with the kind of timing that felt deliberate, like he’d measured exactly how much distance he could put between us without ever acknowledging me.
For one cruel second, I thought he might hesitate.Instead, he left before I could gather the courage to follow.
I stayed frozen, clapping on instinct, my eyes burning as the curtain fell.
He hadn’t come for me.
He came for them.
It was proof that he still cared.Just not enough to stay.
I didn’t know it then, but that quiet restraint would hurt more than anything he could have said.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING ARRIVEDsharp and unforgiving.
There was no space for grief or second-guessing.Just coffee cooling on my desk, unread emails stacking up, and the familiar rhythm of a life that had resumed as if nothing had ever threatened to destroy it.
I hadn’t slept much.Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Creed’s laughter—soft, real—followed by the echo of his absence.
By the time I stepped into the executive conference room, I had already rehearsed half a dozen versions of what I might say when I saw him.None of them survived the weight of daylight.
The room was all glass and polish, a space designed for power and precision.The long table gleamed beneath recessed lighting, polished and pristine.I took my seat.Executives filed in, voices low, folders opening, chairs sliding back.I aligned my notebook again, then stilled my hands when I realized I was doing it for the third time.
Then the door opened.
The air shifted, not dramatically, just enough to be felt by anyone paying attention.
Dark suit.Immaculate.Controlled.The kind of man who didn’t command a room by speaking.He did it by existing in it.
Conversations dipped.Creed didn’t scan the room.Didn’t need to.He already knew who was there.
He took his seat at the head of the table, next to mine and close enough that I could see the faint shadow along his jaw, the disciplined calm in his expression.
I was in his line of sight and completely irrelevant.Surely there will be a glance.A flicker.Something.
He didn’t look at me.Not once.
His focus went to the agenda, to the financials, to anything that wasn’t the woman he had once sworn to protect.
“Let’s begin,” he said, voice even, detached.The same voice that had once wrapped around me in the dark and promised safety.Now it offered structure.Distance.
