“I can’t keep pretending I don’t still want him.”
The words aren’t loud. But they’re true and they gut me anyway..
I make my way to the bathroom, the mirror doesn’t lie.
I look like someone who tried to pretend she was okay and failed halfway through.
I turn on the shower just to fill the space with noise, then brace both hands on the sink and bow my head. A single breathshudders out of me, shaky and uneven. The kind of breath that comes right before the break.
Not crying over him, or the pointless date, or the look he gave me from across that bar that knocked the air out of my lungs.
I peel off my clothes and step under the water. The second the heat hits my skin everything inside me comes undone.
Not in sobs or loud gasps, just a slow, quiet unraveling I can’t fight off anymore.
It’s this slow, aching unraveling that feels like something slipping through my fingers I was never meant to hold in the first place.
I press my forehead to the tile and let the water run down my back. It doesn’t wash away the image of him frozen, staring, and jealous in a way he had no right to be. It doesn’t erase Brian’s hand on my arm or the way Jace looked ready to incinerate him for touching me at all.
It definitely doesn’t erase the truth I whispered into the night.
I turn off the water and wrap myself in a towel, moving on autopilot through the house. I heat leftovers I don’t eat. I wipe down a counter that’s already clean. I fold a blanket on the couch just to keep my hands busy.
Anything so I don’t have to sit still with the truth.
But eventually the exhaustion catches up, and I crawl into bed. The sheets are cool. The room is dark. And I lie there staring at the ceiling like it might have answers tucked between the plaster.
I grab my phone.
Open my messages.
His name is right there.
I shouldn’t.
I won’t.
I can’t.
But my thumb hovers anyway and before I can anything my phone buzzes once against the mattress.
Emma: Woman, are you alive? You said you’d text me and didn’t. Do I need to come over?
A breath leaves me that’s half-laugh, half-ache.
Me: I’m okay. Just tired. No need to come over. I’ll call you tomorrow.
She replies instantly.
Emma: Fine. But if you die of emotional stupidity, I’m haunting you.
Despite everything, a small smile tugs at my mouth. It fades quickly, leaving the room quiet again.
The kind of silence that sees everything. And somewhere in that stillness, the truth settles again.
I still want him because I never stopped. And pretending otherwise is tearing me apart.
I roll onto my side, blink at the darkness, and breathe out the words again softer this time, but just as true.
