She wasn’t from their world. Too self-made. Toomuch. And Nate was a prize his mother didn’t believe someone like Holly should ever get to keep.
Holly’d been letting herself dream. Not consciously, but in small flashes. Nate’s arm around her as they walked through the city. Nate’s mouth against her temple last night, whispering sweet things as she drifted off. Nate sayingyou’re in minelike it was easy. Nate looking at her like she wasn’t just a partner, but a place to belong.
Holly had been letting herself imagine a version of life where the show ended and hedidn’t.Her voice stayed even. “Nate can make his own choices.”
Helene’s eyes softened, pity masquerading as kindness. “Ofcoursehe can. But he’s a man who’s always been… susceptible. To narratives.” She said it like Holly was a storyline. Like she wasn’t a whole human being with grit in her teeth, blood under her veins, and dreams in her heart.
Holly swallowed, slow. The future she’d almost touched hovered in her mind like a fragile glass ornament. She could see it. She could feel it. And now she could hear it shattering. She held her smile until it hurt. Then she nodded, polite and perfect and dying quietly inside.
“Thank you for your concern.”
His mother rose smoothly, as if the conversation had been a pleasant tea. She walked to the door and paused, hand on the handle. “I trulydohope you win your show,” she said, voice warm as frost. “It would be a lovely memory.”
A memory. Not a life. Not forever. Just something Nate would look back on someday with fond regret and a more suitable wife beside him. The door clicked shut behind her.
Holly didn’t move for a long time.
She just stood there in the sudden, ringing quiet, staring at the space where a future had been.
62
GIRL DISAPPEARS MID ROM-COM
Holly
“I wasn’t snooping. I was… emotionally temperature-checking his wardrobe.”
When Nate got back, they didn’t immediately speak about his mom, but she could tell he clocked the shift in her. They sat across from each other over lukewarm coffee and Danish pastries in the courtyard of their charming hotel, a place with wrought-iron chairs and café chatter that made everything feel scenic but not always comfortable.
Nate’s voice was low when he brought it up, measured and careful as though not to break the fragile happiness they’d built the day before. “I’m sorry she ambushed us like that,” he said, eyes tracking the steam from his mug.
Holly didn’t let the bitterness show on her face. She’d masteredpolite smile while dying insideyears ago. It was practically a life skill at this point. “It’s okay,” she murmured, but her mind was already racing.
POV: me trying to live my blossoming love story but trauma keeps popping up like an unskippable ad.
As much as she tried to let it go, a tick of worry burrowed itself into her chest, where it settled with a disturbingly permanent vibe.
Nate reached out then, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead in a gesture that was both tender and utterly disarming. “We don’t have to talk about it today,” he said, voice soft like a promise and heavy like something unspoken.
She nodded, and for a few glittering seconds it felt like they were just two regular people in a pretty European café. Not a dancer with trust issues and a man with a family townhouse picketed withNo-Dancers-Allowedsigns.
Later, when he stepped into the shower, Holly was folding the silly scarf she’d bought him and thinking how absurdly alive and domestic andrealit had felt to see him wear it. She draped it over a chair like a token, proof that joy wasn’t always temporary. That maybe love wasn’t just a bright flash you blinked and lost.
But then she saw his toiletries bag, unzipped on the bench. And wickedly tempting curiosity nudged her closer.
She told herself she was just looking for his toothpaste so she could borrow it, rummaging through the bag with a quiet, lazy intent. Then something small caught her eye, tucked into the corner of the bag as if it was trying to hide.
A box.
A small, pale blue box.
Her breath hitched before her brain caught up. The box opened like a trapdoor in her chest to reveal a ring. Simple, elegant, but positively loaded with implication. Her vision narrowed,focus crystallizing on that circlet of metal like it was the only thing in the room. And all the air went out of her.
Not fear exactly. Something heavier.No. Not this.
She’d seen this scene before, to the point that her nervous system had the PTSD downloaded with automatic subtitles:
happy → hope → something that looks like forever → collapse
