She should. Every part of her knows she should, but her thumb hovers over the screen, frozen, like her body is stuck in some old muscle memory of giving her one more second. One more chance. One more whatever.
Brooke takes the silence as an opening.
“I didn’t call to fight,” she says, tone smoothing out into something practiced. “I ... I miss you. I stopped by your apartment earlier, but you weren’t there.”
Valeria closes her eyes and exhales slowly, her muscles tensing. She’s fishing. Trying to find out why Valeria isn’t home at. She looks toward the digital clock on Camila’s nightstand—seven in the morning on a Sunday.
“Don’t,” is all Valeria says.
Where she’s hanging out is no longer Brooke’s problem, and she won’t be made to feel bad about it.
“I mean it,” she murmurs. “I miss you.”
“Brooke, please stop.” Her voice doesn’t shake, but it’s softer than it should be,almost broken. She can’t handle this right now. It’s too much, her heart aches, and the headache that was brewing earlier is now raging while a knot of pure dread tightens in her stomach, making her feel nauseous.
Brooke knows how to crack her open. She doesn’t even have to try. Her “I miss you” lands like a hook, sharp and nostalgic. She hates that about herself. Hates how quickly her body reacts before her mind can catch up. The softening in her limbs. This is her normal with Brooke. Brooke is calling to tell her she misses her, wants to see her, and is confusing Valeria out of the calm she’d felt before folding into her, only to do this all again in a few months.
But she’s done with this, should have been a long time ago, but now, with Camila, with everything between them being sosteady, so unexpectedly gentle, it feels obvious in a way it never did before.
With Camila, there’s no whiplash. No disappearing acts disguised as “space.” No late-night apologies that sound poetic but change nothing. Camila doesn’t make love feel like something Valeria has to earn, chase, or decode.
Valeria stares at her phone, thumb hovering, and realizes she needs to choose—not between Brooke and Camila, but between chaos and peace. Between repeating a familiar pain and protecting the quiet she’s learned to love.
She exhales, long and slow, and lets the phone go dark.
“I miss you, baby,” Brooke says again. Valeria’s vision blurs at the edges, the room seeming to swim as the pressure behind her eyes intensifies.
“Brooke, we’re done. We broke up months ago. I don’t need this right now. I’m happy.”
“You know you and I are never done,” Brooke laughs, but it’s not her usual one; it’s sadder, breathier, and Valeria’s chest tightens instantly at the words.
“We are Brooke ... please, don’t make this harder.” And that’s when Valeria finally hangs up. She doesn’t process the movement—doesn’t think through the decision. It just happens, instinct taking over before doubt can stop her. The moment the call ends, she feels a rush of exhaustion.
Silence from Brooke doesn’t last long, though.
Brooke 7:04 a.m.:
I’m meeting a client near your place tomorrow. I’d love to see you.
A slow dread creeps into her chest as she reads the message, and she tosses her phone aside and pulls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, swallowing against the sudden urge to cry. It’s infuriating how Brooke can drag her back into the lowest parts of herself with nothing more than a call.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CAMILA
Camila has been pacing the length of the hallway between her bedroom and the kitchen for what has felt like hours—though realistically it’s been more like minutes.
The moment Camila realized it was Brooke on the phone, fear took over—the sharp, irrational kind that whispers worst-case scenarios. Before she realized what she was doing, the door to her bedroom was closing behind her. Somehow, even on automatic, she knew she could sit there and listen in while Brooke whispered apologies into the phone, trying to pull Valeria back in.
After pacing herself dizzy, Camila heads into the kitchen. She grounds herself in the simplicity of brewing their morning coffee, letting the routine steady her before her thoughts can run away with her. From the kitchen, Camila can hear the faint murmur of Valeria’s voice, and anxiety prickles along her spine.
As much as she doesn’t want to be, she’s terrified that Brooke’s manipulation will be enough to make Valeria walkright out the door and take back everything she said an hour ago.
If she thought about it sensibly, she’d know Valeria would never do that to her, but she isn’t being sensible, not right now. Not with the way her heart is palpitating.
God, she needs a cigarette. The craving comes on suddenly, as if a switch flipped somewhere deep in her nervous system, and it surprises her—it’s been weeks, maybe even months, since she’s felt it this strongly. Smoking had always been the thing she reached for when her emotions started spiraling. For years, her anxiety has been relentless, and a cigarette is the only thing that offers relief, but around Valeria, the urge never shows up, not until now.
Camila opens the drawer where she usually keeps unopened packs, but there are none. She looks in every spot she can usually count on, but there’s not a single one in her house. Her muscles tense, and a restless tremor skitters through her nerves, fraying them thread by thread.
