My hands tighten on the steering wheel as an image of Sarah cuts through my thoughts without permission.
The Brew House.
The way her eyes widened just slightly when she looked up and saw me, like her body reacted before she could stop it. Brian across from her, relaxed and present, close enough that it shouldn’t have mattered and still did — like he wasn’t carrying the history I was.
The brush of her fingers against mine when we both reached for her keys.
The way my entire body locked up like something ancient and unmanageable had been woken up with one touch.
I swallow hard, jaw tightening.
I hated myself in that moment.
Not for wanting her. That part has never been the problem.
I hated myself for how obvious it was. For the way I couldn’t hide it even when I tried. For the way my presence turned a simple apology coffee into something tense and complicated and unfair to her.
To Brian.
He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Neither had she.
I turn without thinking about it.
Not toward my house.
Toward hers.
The decision happens in my hands first. A right turn. A familiar stretch of road. The kind of muscle memory I don’t want to admit I have, because it means I’ve driven this way more than I should.
I tell myself it’s nothing.
‘Just to see.’
Like that’s a harmless reason.
By the time her street comes into view, my heart is beating too hard for a man who just signed papers like he didn’t feel anything.
I slow down.
Her house sits there like it always has. Ordinary. Quiet. A couple cars in driveways up the road. A dog barking somewhere nearby.
No sign of her in the yard.
No dramatic moment waiting for me.
Just the simple fact that she’s inside that space, living her life, trying to do the right thing, and I’m outside like a coward with a steering wheel in my hands.
I pull to the curb and kill the engine.
The silence is immediate, thick.
My phone sits in the console like it’s watching me.
I don’t pick it up.
I stare at her front door.
