He turned to her. “What?”
She turned to meet his gaze. Her expression was almost apologetic.
“I don’t know how to be strangers with you,” she replied.
He stilled. It was so honest yet so unflinchingly brutal that he felt like the air had been knocked from his lungs.
He’d spent years carefully locking away all thoughts of her. Forcing indifference into those places where love used to be. He’d even convinced himself that he wasn’t angry about how things ended anymore. But here on this roof, he could feel those walls beginning to crack. Worse, he was reminded of how weak they had been in the first place. Paper-thin and just waiting to be ripped.
What was he doing? He already knew what it would look like on the other side of that. He had let himself be vulnerable with her before; he didn’t know if he could survive it again.
“I should go,” he said, his voice clipped as he turned toward the steel door they had just come through.
“Right.” She nodded. “It’s late.”
They walked back to the door, then down the stairs in silence. Once they arrived down in the hallway, he turned toward the door to his apartment, and she pressed the button for the elevator.
“Thank you. For making me go up there,” he said, breaking the heavy silence.
“Anytime,” she replied.
A loud ding echoed around them as the elevator doors opened. She stepped inside.
“Anne,” he said before she could press the down button.
She looked up, meeting his gaze.
He wanted to say he was sorry for how he’d acted that first moment he saw her at Cricket’s apartment, for how he’d acted every moment since. But he didn’t know how to apologize without dredging up so much else, things he had worked to bury for so long that he was terrified of disturbing them.
Finally, he just offered a somber smile. “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” she replied.
Then the elevator doors closed.
His chest ached when he walked into his apartment. He didn’t go to the kitchen to get a drink, though. And he didn’t go to his bedroom and change, get out of his suit and go to bed. No, he went to the spare bedroom and stared out the window at her view of the stars.
CHAPTER 13
Anne stood under the hot spray of her shower and sighed, forgetting for a moment that the tub she was standing in was rusty and the cramped walls felt like they were closing in on all sides.
Apartment 4B didn’t have many highlights, but she had learned quickly that the shower was at the top of that short list. The water pressure was phenomenal, and with a radiator planted right beside the tub—which ensured the room was always a touch warmer than anywhere else in the apartment—it was all the motivation she required to get out of bed every day.
The comfort was doubly needed today. When her alarm went off at seven, she had immediately turned it off and curled back under her comforter. Anne was set to meet Sophie at ten, go over all the work she had done to organize the shop’s finances, but that wasn’t eventually what prodded her out of bed and into the shower. It was the memories of the night before. The play, the arrest, then everything that came after. She was concerned about Cricket, of course, but Ellis had been texting with updates all night, so Anne knew she was okay. No, the scene that played on repeat in her mind was the car ride home, the conversation, theway Freddie looked at her when they were standing on the roof, just like he used to…
Except he’s not that Freddie anymore, she reminded herself for the fifth time since she’d stepped in the shower. In fact, he’d even told her that in the cab ride home.
It was like they almost resented who I am now and wanted me to fall back into that old version of myself from before I left.
She closed her eyes and stuck her face under the water again, trying to drown out the memory. She was so focused on it that she almost missed the sound of voices coming from the other room.
Her body tensed as she turned off the water, listening more closely.
“It’s a travesty!” a shrill voice cried out from beyond the bathroom door.
Anne released a sigh of relief. Cricket was home.
She got out of the shower and dried off, wrapped her robe around herself, and stepped out of the bathroom.
