Marco has been texting Hannah and another woman named Brenda. The messages with Hannah are polite. Light. Getting-to-know-you conversation. The kind that ends with smiley faces and safe questions about favorite movies and work schedules.
The messages with Brenda are…not that.
They’re full of innuendo that escalates quickly into specifics. Graphic ones. Ones that have even me, a man with clearly questionable morals, shaking my head.
Judging between the two threads, it’s obvious why Marco chose Brenda. Still, I thought he might at least have the decency to cancel. Call Hannah. Text her. Claim a sudden illness. A dead grandmother. Anything.
Instead, he’s gone with the easier option.
Do nothing.
Let her get dressed. Let her wait.
Let her wonder what she did wrong.
I lower the phone, my jaw tightening, and peer at the screen.
What should I do? What can I do?
I made myself a promise a long time ago that I wouldn’t interfere in her life. Watching her is already a line I shouldn’t cross. Knowing intimate details about her, details she never offered me, is messed up. I’m not so far gone that I don’t recognize that.
This is the boundary I drew in the sand: watch, but don’t engage.
Wait. Hope nothing changes.
Hope she never wants more than that apartment. That small, contained life where she moves between work and home, home and work, with the occasional grocery run or coffee with the few friends she keeps.
When she first started talking to Marco, I panicked. The kind of feeling that tightens your chest, makes it hard to think. I was convinced I was finally going to lose her.
When he chose Brenda as his Valentine’s Day date instead, relief flooded me.
Immediate. Intense.
Followed closely by guilt.
If I actually cared about Hannah, shouldn’t I want more for her? Someone who shows up. Someone who takes her out. Someone who doesn’t leave her sitting alone on Valentine’s Day.
I’m so lost in this spiral of thoughts that I miss the sound of Hannah getting up off the couch. It’s not until I hear her voice, tight and sharp with fury, that my eyes snap back to the screen. There Hannah stands with her jaw tight and her shoulders tense. I’ve never seen her so angry.
“This is bullshit,” she tells Mr. Wiggles, who gazes up at her with his tail twitching.
“I can’t believe it,” Hannah says as she begins to pace, her feet stomping overly loud in her spiked heels. “That asshole is actually standing me up on Valentine’s Day! Afterhe’sthe one who came onto me, who was the first to text, the first to call. The one to suggest we spend this, the most monumental night of all nights, together. But look,” pointing to her watch, “it’s an hour past when he was supposed to be here.”
Her arms fold over her chest, and I can’t miss how her lower lip gives one tiny quiver. In a softer voice, she says, “He’s not coming, is he, Mr. Wiggles?” A single tear tracks down her cheek, and the sight of it rearranges something in my chest.
How much would a hitman cost?I wonder, picturing my bank account and how I’d like to drain it to kill Marco right now.
Hannah sucks in a deep breath, pulls herself tall, and declares to her cat, “I’m not letting him get away with it!”
Then she smiles.
It’s sharp. Unsettling. Almost feral.
Instinctively, I shrink back in my seat.
“That idiot didn’t realize,” she adds, almost cheerfully, “that when he called me last week he started sharing his location with me.”
Oh shit.
