Page 119 of Into Pitch

“I can’t,” I blurt, stepping away. “I’m sorry. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

He gives me a sad smile. “That’s usually how it goes.”

He leaves without making it weird or pushing for explanations. The door closes behind him, and the silence rushes right back in. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, pulling my knees straight to my chest. Trying to hold myself together by sheer force.

“You idiot,” I whisper to myself and the dark that doesn’t bother caring.

I don’t find out by accident.

I found out because I pay very close attention to everything Sadie does whether she realizes it or not.

Not that she would tell me, she’s guarded in a way she wasn’t before. Like she’s learned that silence can be armor if you wear it long enough. But people talk and patterns shift. A bartender leaves with someone she never leaves with and a man lingers too long near her space.

I don’t need names, I only need confirmation.

That takes me less than a day.

I recognize Evan as one of the bar’s regular orbiters. Broad enough to be useful, but unremarkable enough to think he’s entitled to proximity. The kind of man who makes mistakes because he thinks the world works as it should.

I sit in my car two blocks away and watch him leave the bus. He hadn’t stayed long, so I can assume they didn’t actually fuck. But he’s got that look about him that says he got enough and thinks that maybe there’s more if he waits it out.

It’s not rage I feel when I slip from the car. Rage would be sloppy and inefficient. He crossed a boundary without knowing it existed, and although it doesn’t absolve him, it does give him some leverage in how this will end.

It’s just… the world doesn’t stop being dangerous just because someone didn’t read the signs.

I don’t confront him immediately, but stay a few paces behind. Quiet as I let the rhythm of the night guide us both along. He leaves the bar and walks three blocks before cutting through a side street, unlocking a door that sticks in the frame. It’s not his home, so I’m assuming there’s too much heat there.

So, I wait. I’ve got all the time in the world, because I’m not the one on a timer with invertibility.

When he comes back out, it’s hours past midnight. The street is empty when I step into his path. He startles at my abrupt arrival, squaring his shoulders like that might matter.

“Do I know you?” He asks.

“No, but you know her.”

Confusion flickers across his face as he stares at me, then recognition.

“Look, man, if this is about—”

“It is,” I confirm.

He shifts his weight defensively, posturing just a bit. I let him finish talking because people always reveal themselves if you give them enough rope.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he scoffs. “She said yes.”

“Do you think I really give a shit about that?”

He scoffs. “You her boyfriend or something?”

Something like that.

“Did you touch her?”

He doesn’t say a damn word, and that’s answer enough.

“That’s what I thought.” I whisper and step forward.

I wash my hands.