Ronan stands, the stance I've seen so many times before, he's getting ready to pack up, sticks in hand. “Stop stalling,go already.”
He’s right so I grab my keys. Maybe it’s stupid, showing up at her place uninvited, but sitting here feels worse. Halfway there, I start drafting what I’ll say if she opens the door, something real, not rehearsed.
This is what I meant, Kasia. The chaos. I tell myself it’s part of the job, but it’s just me forgetting that time moves for other people too.
By the time I pull up outside her building, the sun’s gone. My pulse is steady in that dangerous, hopeful way. I text once more:
outside. don’t freak out.
no boombox but I’m not above it.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear. I exhale, leaning against the steering wheel, a laugh slipping out, tired, guilty, desperate all at once.
“Alright, ” I whisper to no one. “Message received. I'm trying to get it right this time.”
I sit there under the streetlight, engine off, hands resting on the wheel. The light paints everything in that washed-out yellow thatmakes you feel like you’ve already done something wrong. My head tilts back, eyes closed, breathing through the static in my chest. I’m not praying, I just don’t know what else to do.
The window above me stays dark, but I know she sees me. I can feel it, the way I can sense a double take, some reflex born from years of trying to dodge being recognised more often than I ever sought it. I think about driving off, pretending I never came. But I can’t keep hiding behind silence and tours and bad timing.
Not this time, with her. Not again. I’ve run out of excuses, and honestly, I’m so fucking tired of them, of myself. So I force the door open. The night air hits with a damp chill. I knock once, wait. Twice, still nothing. I try again, a little louder. The door opens a crack. She’s there, hair pulled back, eyes clear and calm and I know I’m in trouble. Still beautiful enough to make my heart stutter, devastating in her simplicity. Her expression doesn’t move when she sees me. Something heavier than anger sits there.
“Hey,” I start, forcing a smile that feels more like a reflex than a choice. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Go home, Rafe.”
The words stop me. Just—stop me.
“Kasia, just—”
“No.” Her voice is steady, final. “You don’t get to just show up and fix it with an apology andthat faceyou use to get away with murder.”
That face? If it didn’t hurt so much, I’d laugh. Instead, I just swallow and nod a little. “It wasn’t—I didn’t mean to ignore you. The day—”
“The day got away from you,” she says for me, and that’s somehow worse, like I’m another repetition in a pattern she’s already exhausted by. I open my mouth, but she keeps going, and every word is another truth I don't want to admit.
“People drop everything foryour schedule, but you’re not theonly onebeing pulled in a dozen directions. I have a thousand people asking for something every day. From the minute I arrive until the minute I leave, someone’s calling my name. If I can make time,so can you.You justdidn’t,even thoughyou saidyou would.”
She’s right. Of course she’s right and I hate it. I’ve been usingbusylike armor.
“I don’t needperfection, Rafe. I just need effort.Communication.No games, hot then cold. I already had that bullshit in the past and I’m not about to repeat it, I don’t carewhoyou are.”
“It was never a game—” But the rest dies in my throat.
Her words find every crack in me I thought I’d learned how to patch. I want to tell her she’s the only calm thing I’veever foundin the noise. That I’m trying. That it’s never been about effort, it’s about fear. Because she sees through every barrier I use to keep myself together. But none of that would sound like enough.
“Wednesday’s cancelled,” she says finally. “I gave in because you were charming and seemed sincere, but if you can’t even text or keep a promise, you canclearlysurvive without me.”
There’s nothing left to defend. Just her standing there, waiting to see if I’ll fuck this up too. So I nod, slowly. “Alright,” I say. “I’ll wait.”
I mean it, even if it kills me. She closes the door before I can say anything else. I stay there for a while, staring at the wood grain, at the thin line of light under the frame, anything that proves she’s still there. My reflection in the peephole looks wrecked.
When I finally turn away, the night feels colder than when I arrived. Everything I want to say stays stuck somewhere between my teeth and my chest. Halfway down the steps, I look back. There’s a faint shadow at the curtain, her silhouette, still there. She had to watch me leave and I had to look back at her.Just like Orpheus, I think to myself. It wouldbe nothing to most, but to me, it’s everything. It's hope. I shove my hands into my pockets, breathe out hard through my nose.
I’ll wait, Kasia. But I won’t do it quietly.
By the time I get back to the car, the air’s colder. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’ve been coasting on charm and momentum, counting on the idea that people forgive anything from someone theystill want. I stare at the phone for a long moment before I type.
you looked like pure devastation. when you were putting me through it.
