Just … bent.
“Love you, Ma.”
“We love you too, sweetheart.”
I hung up, dropped my head back, and let the quiet of my apartment close around me.
I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t put another weight on their already breaking backs.
So I took a long shower, shaved, threw on a shirt, and looked for a distraction from my own drowning.
There was nothing in my apartment to keep the thoughts at bay, so I tried going on a walk.
Except it wasn’t much of a walk. More of a wander.
Campus was settling into late afternoon—students huddled on benches, skateboard wheels rattling over pavement, laughter drifting across the quad. I let myself drift with it, hands shoved deep into my pockets.
When I looked at them—laughing, sprawled across the grass, arguing about assignments or weekend plans—there was this strange ache in my ribs. A memory of a life that used to be mine.
When I had been a college swimmer, the biggest things I’d had to worry about were early lifts, brutal sets, and turning homework in on time. I’d thought that was pressure back then. I’d thought drowning in essays and midterms was the height of stress.
I hadn’t known anything.
Back then, time had felt like something I had. Now it felt like something that was running out.
Gosh, those days felt stupidly simple now. Predictable. Secure. A whole world where swimming was all I’d had to think about and the biggest financial crisis I’d faced was splitting a pizza four ways.
I didn’t appreciate any of it until it was gone. Andnow? Every time I walked through campus, I felt like a ghost. Someone too old to belong, but too young to be this tired.
Eventually, my tired feet led me to the one place I didn’t have to force myself to breathe.
The Orange Blossom Café downtown on Main Street.
The scent hit me before the door even opened. Fresh citrus scones, sugar glaze, and roasted espresso beans. The café was small, warm, always humming with soft conversation and indie music.
I pushed inside.
And immediately regretted it.
Because sitting at the tiny corner table—curly hair down, blazer shrugged off, exhaustion clinging to her like a second skin—was Roxie Montgomery.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Of course the universe would give me this today.
She looked up from her laptop just as I froze mid-step.
Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. Then went flat in that signature I-tolerate-your-existence-against-my-will glare.
My attention snagged, briefly, on the blue of her eyes before I forced it back under control.
If she caught even a hint of the effect she had on me, she’d never let me live it down. Not that I ever let it show. I’d gotten good at shutting that down the second it started. But lately, it was getting harder to manage.
She lifted her iced coffee, took a measured sip, andarched a brow. “You look like someone stole your lane reservations.”
If only that were the problem.
I exhaled through my nose. “Not today, Roxanne.”
