The bathroom light is too bright, like it’s trying to expose me or interrogate me.
I stand in front of the mirror anyway, both hands braced on the edge of the sink, staring at my own face as if it belongs to someone else. Right now, it feels like it does.
My eyes are swollen. My lashes are clumped. My cheeks look scrubbed raw, like I tried to wipe the whole day off my skin and only managed to make it worse.
Even the shower couldn’t wash it away.
The water helped for about five minutes—hot enough to sting, steam thick enough to cradle me—but the crying jag is still in my bones. My chest still feels tender, like I pulled something. My throat still burns in that exhausted, after-sobbing way, and every time I swallow it’s a reminder of how hard I broke.
On the floor.
In my living room.
With my knees pulled up like I was a child.
And Nico walked in and saw me like that.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, like maybe I can rewind it. Like maybe if I press hard enough, I can go back to the moment before I called him. It’s a wonder he understood anything with the way I was babbling brokenly.
My stomach rolls.
I open my eyes again and look at the mirror. The steam has started to fade from the glass, leaving a clean, clear reflection. Me, bare-faced, hair damp and shoved back, skin blotchy.
I can’t believe I did that.
I can’t believe it was him.
I can’t believe he came.
I thought— God, I don’t even know what I thought. That he would ignore it. That he’d be too busy. That he’d send someone. That he’d ask questions I couldn’t answer. That he’d make it worse, somehow.
Instead, he was just… there.
He didn’t talk me through it. He didn’t try to fix it with words. He didn’t ask me to explain why I was falling apart in the middle of the empty house.
He just held me.
A quiet, solid presence. His arm around my back. His hand at the back of my head. His chest under my cheek. The solid feel of him, like an anchor when my brain kept trying to float away into panic.
Even after my sobs slowed down enough to breathe again, he just held me. As the house grew darker around us and the evening light faded, as the neighborhood came alive with after-work and after-school life. He held me.
At some point, he murmured close to my hair, low and calm. Go upstairs. Shower. Wear something warm. Then come back down. When you’re ready.
But I wasn’t. And still, he never rushed me. Just waited until I heaved a shaky sigh and pulled myself out of his arms.
I shift my gaze down to what I’m wearing now.
Sweatpants. Soft, old, broken-in.
And the Rutgers sweater.
The one I bought my dad the day I told him I got in. He’d held it up like it was a trophy, like it meant I’d already made it in the big leagues. He wore it constantly after that, even when it was too warm, even when it was faded, even when the cuffs got frayed from him tugging them over his hands.
It was his favorite.
I always meant to stop in the store on campus and buy him another one.
Seeing it on me now makes my throat tighten all over again, sharp and immediate, and I lean closer to the sink as if the counter can hold me up.
