“Isn’t it?” He gestured at the assembled chaos. “Look around, Diane. This is your magic. This is what’s inside you—all these options, all these possibilities, all these doors you’ve kept open because you’re too scared to walk through one. And you want me to believe you’ve changed? That you’re ready to choose? When your own power is literally summoning every alternative it can find to stop you?”
“I can’t control it?—”
“Then how can you control yourself?” His voice cracked. “How can you promise me anything when your own magic doesn’t believe you’ll follow through?”
The men were pressing closer now. Greg was trying to hand me his mix tape. Ryan was humming something that might have been “I Want It That Way.” Derek was critiquing the grammar on the shop’s signage. And underneath it all, I could feel my magic churning, desperate, throwing everything it had at me.
Don’t choose. Keep your options open. Stay safe. Stay small. Stay the person you’ve always been.
I’d been listening to that voice for five years.
I was done.
“EVERYONE STOP.”
I didn’t shout it. I didn’t have to. Something in my voice—something that came from a place deeper than fear—made everyone freeze. Even the magic paused, uncertain.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was talking to the assembled men or to my own terrified power. “I know you’re scared. I know choosing feels dangerous. I know the last time I committed to something, it ended in disaster.”
The exes watched me in silence. Marcus watched me from the doorway.
“But I’m done letting fear run my life. I’m done keeping every door open because I’m too scared to walk through one. I’m donebeing the woman who never chooses anything because choosing might hurt.”
I took a step toward Marcus. Then another. The crowd parted around me—or maybe I just stopped seeing them, stopped caring about anything except the man in the doorway and the words I needed to say.
“I choose you.”
His breath caught.
“Not because you make the phone stop buzzing. Not because you’re safe—you’re not safe, you’re terrifying, you’re the scariest thing that’s happened to me in years.” My voice was shaking, but I kept going. “I choose you because you see me. The real me. The scared, commitment-phobic mess who’s been running from everything for five years. And instead of accepting that, you demanded I be better.”
Another step. I was close to him now. Close enough to see the emotions warring on his face—hope, fear, disbelief.
“I choose you because when I’m with you, I don’t want to run. And that’s never happened before. Not once. Not with anyone.”
Behind me, I could feel the magic churning, the matches climbing—10,547, 10,892, 11,234—every option in the universe screaming for my attention.
I ignored them all.
“I choose you, Marcus Chen. Not as an option. Not as a maybe. As the only door I want to walk through.” I took a breath. “If you’ll have me.”
Silence.
The magic held its breath. The exes held their breath. I held my breath.
Marcus stared at me for a long moment. His expression was unreadable—shock, maybe, or disbelief, or something softer underneath that he was trying very hard not to show.
Then he looked past me, at the assembled chaos, and said:
“The shop is closed.”
My heart dropped. After everything I’d just said—after baring my soul in front of my entire romantic history—he was still rejecting me.
“Marcus, please?—”
“Which means everyone needs to LEAVE.” His voice rose to a near-shout. “NOW.”
And they started to fade.
