What if I wake up with her standing over the bed, crying, angry, saying I made her do this?
The thought sticks.
I finish my beer, tip too much, and walk out into the night with a decision already forming.
I don’t go back to my hotel.
I check out at the desk like it’s nothing, then walk six blocks to another place I found on a flier in the lobby. Smaller. Anonymous. No one knows me here.
I sleep better than I have in months.
Saturday morning smells like bread.
Fresh, yeasty, impossible to ignore.
I wake up without an alarm, sunlight slanting across unfamiliar walls, and for one disoriented second I don’t know where I am.
Then I remember.
And I smile.
I buy a paperback from a street vendor—something dog-eared and yellowed, a mystery with a cracked spine. The guy charges me two bucks. I give him five.
Central Park is already alive.
Runners pass in steady rhythm. A man plays cello under a tree, the sound drifting like smoke. Kids chase pigeons. Someone laughs too loud. Someone cries quietly on a bench.
I sit with my coffee and my book and let myself be alone.
No one needs anything from me.
No one’s watching my reactions.
I read half a chapter and then just… stop. Watch the leaves tremble overhead. Feel the sun on my face.
Later, I wander south.
Toward where the city thins and the air changes. Where salt creeps back in and the steel gives way to water. I buy a corn dog from a cart near the edge of everything, grease soaking through the paper. The vendor grins like he knows something I don’t.
I eat it standing there, watching ferries cut through the harbor, the skyline sharp and proud against the sky.
This—this—is peace.
Not love. Not passion. Not the burn.
Just quiet.
And for the first time, I understand something I didn’t want to admit before:
I loved her.
But love shouldn’t feel like waiting for the blast.
I don’t know yet that hell is coming.
I just know that right now, in this stolen pocket of time, I am free.
The city feels different in the morning.
