My old apartment isn't an option. I sublet it to a friend from my writing workshop when I was in California. That was months ago. Emma has made the place her own now, filled it with her plants and her books and her life. I can't exactly knock on the door at midnight and ask for my studio back.
So Chloe's couch it is.
Nothing feels like home anymore except him.
My phone sits on the coffee table, dark and silent. I've been checking it every few minutes, telling myself I'm not waiting for him to call, knowing that's exactly what I'm doing. It's almost midnight. He's working or drinking expensive scotch on his balcony while the ocean crashes against the shore below.
I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder if the distance hurts him the way it hurts me, like a physical ache in my chest that won't go away no matter how many times I tell myself I made the right choice.
Did I make the right choice?
My mother's face flashes through my mind. The coldness in her eyes when she told me to go. The way she turned her back and walked away without looking at me, her shoulders shaking with sobs she was too proud to let me see.
I chose Phoenix over her. I chose a man I've known for months over the woman who raised me, who sacrificed everything for me, who loved me before anyone else in the world knew I existed.
What kind of daughter does that make me?
The phone buzzes against the wood of the nightstand, and my heart lurches so hard I feel it in my throat. I grab it before the first vibration even finishes, and his name glows on the screen like a beacon in the darkness.
Phoenix.
I answer before I can talk myself out of it. "Hello?"
"Jade." His voice is rough, like he's been drinking or crying or both. Just hearing him say my name makes something inside me crack open. "I wasn't sure you'd pick up."
"I almost didn't." It's a lie. I would have answered on the hundredth ring if that's what it took.
Silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we're not saying. I can hear him breathing on the other end, slow and steady, and I close my eyes and imagine him there with me. The warmth of his body against mine. The weight of his arm across my waist. The way he always pulls me closer in his sleep, like even unconscious he can't stand the distance between us.
"I miss you." The words come out like they're being torn from somewhere deep inside him. Vulnerable in a way PhoenixCrawford never lets himself be. "God, Jade, I miss you so much it's killing me."
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. "I miss you too."
"Come home." His voice breaks on the word, and I feel it shatter something inside my chest. "Please. Just come home."
"Phoenix..."
"I know." He cuts me off before I can say whatever I was going to say. "I know I was suffocating you. I know I was being controlling, treating you like a possession. I put a tracker on your phone without telling you. I blocked the door when you tried to leave. I did everything my father does to my mother, everything I swore I would never do, and I'm so fucking sorry."
The tears are falling now, sliding down my temples and into my hair. I don't try to stop them.
"I'm trying to be better," he continues, his voice raw. "I don't know if I can change completely. I don't know if the darkness inside me will ever go away. But I'm trying. For you. Because losing you would destroy me in ways I can't even describe."
I press the phone harder against my ear, desperate to feel closer to him even though he's two thousand miles away. "How do I know you won't do it again? How do I know you won't start controlling me the moment I walk through the door?"
"You don't." The honesty in his voice cuts like a blade. "I can't promise I'll be perfect. I can't promise I won't fuck up again. All I can promise is that I'll try. Every day, I'll try to be the man you deserve instead of the monster I'm afraid I'm becoming."
I think about my mother's words. It’s history repeating itself. Olive, hollowed out and filled with Nicholas until there was nothing left of the woman she used to be.
Is that my future? Is that what loving Phoenix Crawford will cost me?
"I'm scared," I whisper into the darkness. "Of us, of what we've become. Of what we might become if I come back."
"I know." His voice softens. "I'm scared too. Every day I wake up terrified that this is the day you realize you deserve better than me. That this is the day you finally see me clearly and run."
"I do see you." The words come out before I can stop them. "I've seen the best of you and the worst of you. I watched you kill a man, Phoenix. I watched you beat him until there was nothing left, and instead of being horrified, I felt relieved. What does that say about me?"
"It says you're human. It says you understand that sometimes violence is the only answer, even when we wish it wasn't." He pauses, and I can hear him swallow hard. "We're the same, Jade. Both of us broken in ways that other people can't understand. Both of us capable of darkness that would send most people running. Maybe that's why we work. Maybe that's why I can't breathe without you."
