“Keeping things simple.”
She laughs again. This time, it sounds brittle enough to splinter. “Right. Because God forbid anything gets messy.”
The words hit too close. They hit exactly where they shouldn’t. I look away before she can see the truth land.
“I don’t want to argue,” I say.
“Neither do I.” Something in her tone cracks. Quiet. Wounded.
For a moment, a brief and terrifying moment, I feel the instinct to soften. To say something real. To fix what I just crushed without thinking. But real is dangerous. Real asks for more than I have to give. So I shut it down.
“We shouldn’t,” I say instead.
She exhales slowly, and it almost sounds like a flinch. “Got it.”
Her hand lifts toward her sunglasses. For a second, I think she might take them off and let me see her eyes. Let me see how much damage I’ve done. But she doesn’t. She just steps back.
“Well,” she says quietly. “Enjoy… whatever you’re doing.”
The hesitation before she turns is small, barely a pause, but it guts me. It is the kind of pause that suggests she was hoping I’d say something normal, human, or kind. Something that might undo even a sliver of the tension between us.
I don’t say it.
I freeze, because softness has teeth, and I don’t trust myself not to bleed.
“You too,” I manage.
Two useless words. Cold enough that she flinches again.
She disappears inside without another sound. The glass door slides shut with a soft finality, and it hits harder than if she had slammed it.
I stand there with my hand resting on the board and my breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat. Brilliant. Well done. Exactly what I intended, apparently: hurt her before she gets close enough to hurt me.
Except the second she vanished inside, every instinct in me started pulling the other way.
I exhale slowly. My jaw feels locked in place. I didn’t want to be that sharp. I didn’t want to see her shoulders tighten or hear that small, wounded breath. The memory of it replays too clearly, settling under my sternum like a dull ache that refuses to ease.
I scrub a hand over my face. “Knobhead,” I mutter under my breath.
It doesn’t help. I could have handled the entire exchange differently. I could have been polite. I could have been gentle. But gentleness leads to honesty, and honesty leads to doors I can’t open. Not after everything was dragged to the surface yesterday.
Still, I didn’t need to cut her like that. She wasn’t asking for anything. She wasn’t pushing. She just wanted to talk.
And I shut her down like she was a threat.
The worst part is the look she gave me before turning away. The confusion. The flicker of hurt she tried to mask with humour. Lucky moves loud and talks loud and lives loud, but she bruises fast. Faster than she lets anyone see.
And I caused it. Again.
I run my thumb along the rough edge of the wooden board, grounding myself in the coarse texture. The pressure in my chest grows tighter and colder until it feels hollow all at once. This is whyI keep my distance. The reason why I lock everything down. Every time I let myself soften, I end up hurting someone.
But knowing that doesn’t make this feel any better.
I stare at her closed door for a moment too long. A small war rages inside me. One part of me wants to knock, apologise, do something to fix what I broke. The other part screams for distance.
The louder voice wins. It always does.
I turn back toward my house, moving stiffly, mechanically. Regret follows with every step, close enough that I can almost feel its breath on my neck.
