When you let someone see you cared.
They took it as permission. License to push. To test. To see exactly how far they could stretch before you snapped them back.
Belle thought last night earned her leniency. Thought gentleness meant the rules no longer applied. Thought she could skip my game, refuse my jersey, deny me the one simple thing I'd asked without consequence.
Wrong.
I slammed my palm against the steering wheel hard enough the horn blared briefly into the night.
"Not a fucking chance, Belle."
The words came out harsh. Guttural. Directed at no one but somehow still a promise.
She didn't get to do this. Didn't get to make me care and then disappear. Didn't get to play house one night and ghost me the next.
Didn't get to decide which version of me she preferred and only show up for that one.
The bookstore appeared ahead—dark except for a single light burning in the back office.
Still there.
Still defiant.
Still mine whether she admitted it or not.
I pulled into the lot too hard, tires screeching, gravel spraying. Cut the engine. Sat in sudden silence with my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles went white.
Breathing hard.
Heart pounding.
Fury and hurt and need all tangled so tight I couldn't separate them anymore.
She was in there. Close enough to touch. Close enough to punish. Close enough to make understand exactly what ignoring me cost.
I got out of the car. Slammed the door. Crossed the parking lot with purpose that felt dangerously close to violence.
The bookstore door was locked.
So, she went home.
I did too.
The house was dark when I pulled into the driveway.
Most of it.
One light glowed from the living room—soft, warm, mocking in its casual domesticity.
Like nothing was wrong. Like she hadn't just humiliated me in front of thousands.
I killed the engine. Sat for three seconds in pure, crystalline silence while my pulse hammered against my skull.
Then I moved.
The front door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame. I didn't bother closing it. Didn't care about locks or security or anything beyond the woman somewhere inside these walls who thought she could ignore me without consequence.
I didn't call her name. Didn't ask where she was. Didn't give her the courtesy of a warning.
