Anna is on me before I can wipe my face, dropping to the floor and wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I fold into her without grace, ugly-crying into her sweatshirt while she strokes my hair and murmurs meaningless words that still somehow help. Time shrinks to breath and shaking and the solid weight of her against me.
When the worst of it ebbs, she helps me up and steers me gently to the couch. The prosecco bottle still sweats on the table, two glasses standing there like evidence. Anna eyes them, reaches for the bottle, and studies the label.
“If the bastard brings anything useful, we might as well take it,” she says.
Then, very deliberately, she picks up the glass Peter used, carries it to the sink, and washes it. Once. Twice. A third time, scrubbing as if she can erase his fingerprints to the last molecule.Only when she’s satisfied does she set it upside down on the rack and come back with a fresh one.
The exaggerated thoroughness of it knocks a hiccup of laughter out of me. I press my palms to my wet face, feeling myself slowly reassemble.
“Better?” she asks, flopping down beside me.
“A little,” I sniff. “I feel so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid,” she says immediately.
“I mean now,” I insist. “He was actually… nice. Mostly. And I still had to fight every instinct in me to please him. To say the thing he wanted to hear, sit where he wanted me, drink the wine he brought, and smile as if nothing happened. My whole body just goes on autopilot around him.”
Anna leans back, watching me. “That’s not stupidity,” she says quietly. “That’s seven years of conditioning.”
I swallow. The word fits too well.
“Did he at least talk about the money?” she asks after a moment.
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Of course, he doesn’t want to give it back. He admitted he used the deposit. Says he’ll ‘pay me in a month’. You know what that means—he’ll use it as an excuse to see me again.”
“We should tell Eva to ask for Jan’s advice,” Anna says, eyes flashing. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I know.” I stare at my hands. “But I also know he’ll play poor and dramatic if I go in guns blazing. I wanted to give him one last normal chance. One month. If he doesn’t pay, then we go official. I won’t die of hunger meanwhile.”
Anna studies me for a beat, then nods reluctantly. “Okay. One month. But then you’re done being nice.”
“Deal.”
Silence settles for a moment, softer now. Oscar hops up onto the armchair, curls himself into a judgmental loaf, tail wrapped neatly around his paws.
“So,” Anna says eventually, voice gentler, “do I get to ask how it went with your sad, hot Austrian?”
Despite everything, my lips twitch. “Fabio,” I say. Just saying his name feels like opening a window. “I saw him.”
Her eyebrows arch. “You will elaborate on it, right?”
“It was…” I search for the word. “Beautiful. Stupid and intense and so, so good. We skied together, he trained me, we… connected. It felt like living inside a fake happily ever after for a few days.”
“And now?”
“It’s over,” I say, feeling the words land, heavy.
She blinks. “Already? Why?”
“Because Fabio doesn’t expect me to make him happy,” I say slowly, surprised at how true it sounds out loud. “He’s… decent. Solid. He actually listens. And this stupid instinct I have to please, to twist myself around a man’s needs, is still there. I could feel it starting with him, too. He might be the most decent guy I’ve ever met, but I’m a mess. Look at me.”
Anna snorts softly. “What I see is someone who faced her manipulative ex in her own living room tonight and didn’t fold. That’s not a mess, that’s progress.”
I sigh, leaning my head back against the couch. “Maybe. But Fabio called while Peter was here. I had to mute it. I should probably call him back and explain. I feel… bad.”
“Bad about Peter?”
“Bad about all of it,” I say. “But mostly about Fabio. He didn’t deserve a breakup text and a missed call.”
