This isn’t my bed.
It’s his.
I open my eyes, careful, like the morning might startle if I move too fast. Pale light spills in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, cutting the room into quiet shapes and shadows, announcing a new day that feels heavier than it should.
I push myself up slowly.
The space beside me is empty.
He’s gone.
Something in my chest tightens hard enough to steal my breath, not panic, not fear, just a sharp, instinctive pull, like I’ve been set down somewhere unfamiliar without warning.
On the nightstand, my phone waits. Beneath it, a single sheet of paper.
I check the time out of habit. 7:09 a.m. One message. Tate. I don’t open it. Not yet. I’m not ready to let the world back in.
I reach for the paper instead.
The handwriting is neat. Controlled. Unmistakably his.
Little Heaven,
I had to step out to deal with some business.
Don’t leave.
I clutch the paper in my hands longer than necessary, reading the words again and again like they might rearrange themselves if I stare hard enough.
Don’t leave.
NotI’ll be back soon. NotI’m sorry.
Just a directive. Calm. Certain.
The realisation settles slowly, unsettling and intimate all at once: he left me here alone. In his space. Not abandoned, butkept.
At the foot of the bed, another shirt waits. No pants this time. Just fabric, dark and familiar. I reach for it and pull it over my bare skin, the cotton heavy with his scent. Clean. Dark. Him.
The smell hits first.
And suddenly last night crashes back in, sharp and vivid. The date. The way the line blurred and then vanished entirely. The rain. The shower. His restraint finally giving way. The things we said when there was no room left for pretending.
There’s no regret. Not even a flicker.
Only the strange, steady awareness that something irreversible has already taken hold.
I slide out of bed and follow the quiet through the apartment, my steps slow, almost reverent. The hallway opens into the kitchen, all glass and shadow and morning light.
By the coffee machine, another note waits.
I don’t pick it up right away. I just look at it, my pulse ticking louder than it should.
Finally, I read it.
Coffee is brewed.
Make yourself at home.
